


Strange Torpedo

by connectknee



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Career Ending Injuries, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, extremely low conflict, idiots to lovers, migraines, the perennial tk/nolan tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:57:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22117243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/connectknee/pseuds/connectknee
Summary: The first time Nolan ever meets TK, he has whiskers drawn on his face in purple marker and his hair is pulled into lopsided pigtails with those clacky little hair ties, the ones with tiny plastic shapes attached to them. Nolan doesn’t know his name yet. It’s a whole thing."You’re the teacher?" Nolan asks incredulously."Yep," the guy tells him, mouth twitching. "New this year. Thanks for the vote of confidence.""No problem," Nolan says.--In which TK is the unconventional first-grade teacher in charge of Nolan’s niece, and Nolan is trying to figure out what to do with his life after crashing out of hockey.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 361
Kudos: 1132





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Believe it or not, I started writing this before that video with the little kid helping in the Flyers locker room came out, which is how I found out how baby-crazy TK is. Must have just sensed it.
> 
> A note on realism: I've tried to make this as accurate as possible but I'm not an elementary school teacher and I don't live in Philly. I do know someone who used to get debilitating migraines so at least in that regard I hope I've been able to represent them accurately here, according to what they told me. These things seem very variable. Also, Nolan only has one sister in this, and I gave her a daughter which (as far as I know) she doesn’t have in real life in order to make the whole premise work. I know nothing about his family. 
> 
> This fic is complete and I’m going to update every week. The rating will go up in later chapters. It provided me with a lot of serotonin while I was writing it, and I hope it will do the same for you <3 Bon appetit!
> 
> Title is from the Lucy Dacus song.

The first time Nolan ever meets TK, he has whiskers drawn on his face in purple marker and his hair is pulled into lopsided pigtails with those clacky little hair ties, the ones with tiny plastic shapes attached to them. Nolan doesn’t know his name yet. It’s a whole thing.

“You’re the _teacher_?” Nolan asks incredulously.

“Yep,” the guy tells him, mouth twitching. “New this year. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“No problem,” Nolan says.

The guy grins, surprised. His eyes kind of zoom in on Nolan, like he’s snapping into focus. It’s alarming. 

“There is a reason I look like this,” he promises, gesturing to his whole self. Nolan hadn’t noticed until now that he had his t-shirt tied into a crop top and his jeans rolled up above the knee, cutting into the muscle of his thigh. Nolan can see a little slice of tanned stomach above his waistband. What the fuck. Where is he getting a tan like that in Philly in January? “Promise.”

His voice is – nice. A little slurry, that country drawl. One that blurs all the syllables together into something smooth and familiar.

“You Canadian?” Nolan asks, because apparently he left his brain-to-mouth filter at home today.

“Yep,” the guy says again, still grinning. “My name’s TK. You know, just in case that was your next question.”

The guy’s face is so open and friendly that it’s a little disorienting. Nolan legitimately can’t remember what he was going to say. Is this what all elementary school teachers are like? Nolan has never picked Katie up from school before so he wouldn’t know, but the thought is intimidating. This is a lot of personality for one relatively short Canadian.

A small child shrieks somewhere behind the guy – TK – and he rolls his eyes without even turning around to check what’s going on. He doesn’t actually have his hands on his hips, but Nolan feels like he does, you know. Spiritually.

“Shouldn’t you like.” Nolan shuffles from one foot to the other. “Get that?”

“They’ll be fine,” TK says airily over the sounds of another shriek. He winks. “We hide all our weapons and alcohol in the staff lounge. So, are you here to collect somebody, or just to ask me rude questions?”

Nolan scowls. They weren’t _that _rude. “Yeah,” he says. “I mean, the first one. I’m Katie’s uncle? Her mom should’ve –”

“Which Katie?” TK interrupts. “We have like, three.”

Nolan raises his eyebrows. “Do all three have their uncles picking them up today?”

TK laughs, delighted. “What, you think you’re gonna pick up a kid and I’m not even gonna check your last name?” He folds his arms across his chest. It does some stuff to his biceps that Nolan notices and then decides not to think about. “Maybe we should just auction them off on the sidewalk,” he continues, clearly enjoying himself. “Shoot ‘em out of t-shirt guns.”

“Be nice to new person,” says another adult, gliding serenely past behind TK, presumably on his way to disentangle the small scuffle unfolding in the background. He has chin-length blond hair and an angel face. Nolan isn’t sure he’s old enough to be here. “We want him come back. Then don’t put children in lost and found, remember?”

“That’s Oskar,” TK tells Nolan. “Lindblom. Lindy to his friends. He’s joking. Mostly.”

“Patrick,” Nolan says, eyes wide. “Her name is Katie Patrick. I – did you just make a joke about selling children? You’re a _teacher_.”

“That means I can’t have a sense of humour?” TK asks.

He doesn’t give Nolan a chance to respond, already turning away and whistling into the bewildering sea of small children behind him. Oskar holds his hand up in response, weaving his way through the kids like a farmer surrounded by a herd of grumbling sheep.

Nolan stays put, mostly focused on not stepping on anyone. It’s fine when it’s just Katie. He likes Katie. She’s small, but there’s only one of her, and now that she’s in first grade she’s mostly past the point where she screams all the time if she doesn’t get what she wants. Now she only screams if she’s really tired or really hungry or both, which Nolan finds pretty relatable.

“Katie!” TK exclaims when Katie emerges from the tiny crowd, herded by Oskar. “Your uncle’s come to pick you up.”

“Patty!” Katie shouts when she sees him. She looks quickly from TK to Nolan and back again, clapping her hands.

Nolan smiles and bends over, swinging her up into his arms. She throws her hands around his neck, her long hair tickling the bared skin around his shoulder where the collar of his t-shirt pulls to the side.

“Hey,” he says quietly, settling her on his hip. “Your mom has to work late tonight. You wanna go to McDonalds?”

“Yes!” she shouts, pumping both fists. She looks at him hopefully. “An’ go on the dinosaur playground after?”

A vision of Madison’s frowning face floats through Nolan’s brain.

“If you eat all your food?” he guesses, hoping Katie doesn’t call his bluff. He’s definitely going to let her on the dinosaur playground either way. The dinosaur playground rules.

“Deal,” Katie tells him, holding out her tiny chubby hand. Nolan shifts her more firmly onto his hip and they shake on it.

He turns back to TK. He’d managed to forget the whole purple whiskers and pigtails deal while he was talking to Katie and going back to it is kind of a trip. TK doesn’t really have enough hair for the pigtails, so they’re just sticking straight out the side of his head. Unrelated to anything else, there’s a fleck of silver glitter on the bridge of his nose.

He isn’t remotely fazed by Nolan staring, if the amused look on his face is any clue.

“Come pick her up a few more times, you’ll see much worse,” he says dryly.

“Suits you,” Nolan mumbles, then feels his face flush and bites his lip. He meant that to sound like a joke but it didn’t, really. Awesome.

“Thanks,” TK says, his grin growing wider.

Katie tugs on the collar of Nolan’s t-shirt. “I’m hungry.”

That’s another thing he appreciates about her. Rarely does anyone else in his life make their needs as plain as Katie does, giving Nolan a chance to actually try and do something about it before they get annoyed at him. If all adults operated on the same emotional level as small children, Nolan thinks the world would be a much easier place to live.

“Alright.” He tugs on her t-shirt in return. “We’ll go get some food.”

“See you tomorrow, TK,” Katie trills, waving at TK, who waves back so goofily that Nolan can’t help but stare. How does this guy get through the day without regularly smacking himself in the face?

TK winks at him again. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Patrick.”

“It’s Nolan,” he says for some reason, although nobody calls him that but his mom. Even his dad calls him Pat or Patty. Maybe it’s just because this is official, like – TK’s a teacher and all. That’s like being a doctor or a firefighter or something; a job made up of primary colors. Something everyone’s supposed to respect. Nolan clears his throat. “But, uh, Patty’s fine.”

TK raises an eyebrow. “Alright,” he says, a little drawling. Nolan feels the back of his neck heating up. “Patty it is.”

Nolan kind of grunts and then makes for the door before he can say anything else dumb.

“So that’s your teacher?” he asks Katie when they’re all strapped into the car, on their way to McDonalds.

“Yep,” Katie says happily from her carseat in the back. “TK.”

Nolan studies the traffic. “That’s not his real name though, right?”

“I don’t know,” she says unsurely.

“I mean, like.” Nolan thinks. “His last name isn’t TK, right?”

“No,” Katie says, more certain this time. “His real name is Mr. Kon – Mr. Connect – Mr –”

“We’ll figure it out later,” Nolan stops her before she can get flustered. He meets her eyes in the rearview mirror and smiles. He hesitates. “Do you know his first name?”

“Travis,” she says promptly. “I heard Mr. Lindblom say it to him one time. I like it. _Travis._”

“Travis,” Nolan repeats, then shakes his head at himself. “You want chicken nuggets?”

&&&

Now that Nolan has actually met TK, some of the stories Katie’s told him about her teacher start to filter back into his consciousness as if they were locked up in a secret box at the back of his brain just waiting to break out. _This_ is the guy who took the entire class outside after a rainstorm to find worms on the sidewalk and carry them back to the lawn. _This_ is the teacher who naps when the kids do – rolls out a mat for himself and everything, stretches out on his back under his own blanket with his hat pulled down over his eyes.

“Sometimes he snores,” Katie tells Nolan behind her hand while they’re sat at dinner a few days after he picks her up. Like it’s a curse word.

“Huh,” Nolan says. That doesn’t sound right. How does this guy get away with this stuff? It’s not professional, it’s not – how can it be allowed?

“He’s a good teacher,” Madison shrugs when he asks her. She’s been dealing with TK all year while Nolan has only dealt with him once, and it’s nearly February now and none of the kids have died or whatever. Nolan should probably trust what she says.

“But –” Nolan stops. TK had had, like, glitter on his nose. He never had explained why he looked like that. Maybe that’s why Nolan can’t get it out of his head. “He’s just –”

“Katie loves him,” Madison says. She cocks an eyebrow at Nolan, flicking her tongue over her molar as she grins. “You jealous, bro?”

“No,” Nolan mutters. He knows Katie likes him best. He’s big and he has broad shoulders for small humans to sit up on for the best view at firework shows, and he doesn’t mind when Katie wants to watch _Tangled_ three times in a row. It has really good songs.

Katie doesn’t expect Nolan to talk a ton, either. He appreciates that.

“Well, I’m not worried,” Madison says plainly. “He’s good with the kids, he keeps the troublemakers busy. Katie’s learning stuff. Sure, when I met him on parent-teacher night he seemed a little zany, and you couldn’t get him to stop talking once he started, but –”

“Was he wearing a hat?” Nolan interrupts. “Like, did you actually see the top of his head?”

Madison’s lip twitches. “I can neither confirm nor deny.” She clears her throat and flicks the brim of Nolan’s cap. “Besides, it’s not like you can talk.”

&&&

The next time Nolan has to go and pick Katie up, he’s over an hour late.

“I’m sorry,” he’s saying before the classroom door has even opened all the way. “Sorry, I didn’t get out of work until like an hour ago and I didn’t see Madison’s messages and the traffic was crazy. I tried to call the front desk but nobody picked up. Is –”

“Hey, hey,” TK stops him, eyebrows raised. He actually puts a calming hand out towards Nolan, like he thinks he can stop the words forming. He’s sat on one of those dinky little kid chairs, him and Katie both, at a table covered with art supplies and colorful, blocky drawings. Nolan recognises the way Katie draws houses – always with the triangle-shaped roof, scribbled in red and spewing smoke from a chimney their house doesn’t have. She’s had enough time to draw more than a few. Nolan’s stomach twists. “It’s fine, dude. Remember to breathe.”

Nolan kneels down to Katie’s level. She’s fidgeting with her hands and not really looking at him, her mouth set and unhappy. It’s jarring. She’s such a cheerful kid usually – little ball of sunshine, makes it so easy for everyone to love her. Right now, the look on her face is just like the one that appears when her dad comes to pick her up and she can hear him whisper-arguing with her mom through the porch door.

“It’s not because of anything you did,” Nolan tries. He kind of wishes TK wasn’t here for this but the guy just babysat Katie for, like, a full unpaid hour and he’s a teacher, come on. He must have seen stuff like this before. Nolan can probably trust him not to get weirded out. “It’s not your fault. It was just a mistake because of like, traffic and stuff. I’m sorry. I’ll try not to let it happen again, okay?”

God, that sounds so stupid, like he’s talking to HR or something. But it’s true. Maddy’s office job started off okay but now her boss is getting super demanding, making all these noises about staying late to finish the job and whatever. If she gets promoted then her and Katie’ll be able to move out of their parents’ house and into a place of their own again, which is obviously great, but like, not so much if it ends up in situations like this, with both Nolan’s parents at work and him the only one available to dash across town for her.

Katie finally meets his eye. She doesn’t say anything, but she shuffles forward and gives him a hug. Nolan closes his eyes and tucks his face into her neck, just for a second.

“Okay,” he says when Katie pulls back. He looks up at TK and finds him already looking down, smiling a little. Creeper.

There’s a weird moment where they’re just looking at each other and Nolan feels like he’s waiting for TK to tell him it’s okay to do something – what? Stand up? Take Katie home? – before he shakes it off, getting up off the floor. TK has to tilt his head up to keep looking at him. “Thanks, man. You shouldn’t have had to –”

“It’s fine,” TK cuts him off, winking at Katie. She’s still hanging onto Nolan’s hand pretty tight but she’s twisting back and forth a little now, looking more like herself. “I’ve been meaning to catch up on my art, anyway.”

Nolan looks around expecting to see like an easel or something. Old timey art shit. Then he realises TK is pointing at the table with all Katie’s drawings on it, where there’s a couple that look drawn by a different hand.

The corner of Nolan’s mouth twitches. “Cute.”

TK’s smile widens. Nolan clears his throat and looks down at Katie, squeezing her hand. “We should, uh – we should say thank you, right? Thanks for staying and hanging out with you.”

“Thanks, TK,” Katie mumbles into Nolan’s hand, not looking up.

Nolan raises his eyebrows at TK.

“All good,” TK says easily. And none of this is really Nolan’s fault – it’s not like he’s got power over Philly traffic, though if he could sell a kidney for that then he might – but he still feels a weird twinge of guilt anyway. TK didn’t have to be that nice about it. This must have fucked up his whole afternoon.

“Seriously, man,” Nolan says when Katie goes over to the coat racks to pick up her jacket and backpack. “Thanks. I, uh –”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” TK says, waving a hand. He stretches out his back as he speaks, his jaw audibly cracking. A picture flashes into Nolan’s head from nowhere – TK shuffling into some blank nameless kitchen too early in the morning to make coffee, stretching out the kinks in his spine as he yawns. Thick knit sweater pooling around his elbows as he reaches up toward the ceiling, exposing the bones in his wrists. “Shit happens,” TK continues. “You’re way sorrier than most parents are about it, dude. You don’t need to like, cry.”

Nolan snorts in surprise and TK grins. Today his stupid trucker cap says YOU’RE NEAT. Nolan has the urge to knock it off his head, just to see what he’d do.

Katie tugs on Nolan’s hand. He looks down at her, all buttoned up in her coat with her little bobble hat jammed firmly on her head. “What’s up?”

“Can TK ride with us?” she asks, so quietly Nolan barely hears it.

“Uh,” he says, looking around at TK.

TK catches his eye and laughs, a little awkward. “Nah, I can make my own way home.”

“But you stayed with me all afternoon,” Katie says, voice turning plaintive. “And you don’t even like the bus. You said so.”

Nolan frowns. “You take the bus?” TK does not seem like a bus person. He’s definitely a pick-up truck guy. A pick-up truck that smells like Cheetos all the time, for no particular reason. “How come you don’t have a car?”

“Actually, I love the bus,” TK says. “I’d marry the bus, if it was legal in this state.”

“An old man spat at me the last time I took the bus,” Nolan remembers.

TK sighs. “Yeah.”

Nolan studies him. “Alright,” he says. TK cocks an eyebrow and Nolan feels the color in his face rising. Why does this have to happen every time they meet? TK doesn’t know him well enough to look at Nolan like that; like he knows exactly what Nolan’s thinking and he’s deciding whether or not to give him shit about it. “I mean – you should ride with us. Katie said so.”

“Oh, well,” TK says, looking kind of surprised but covering for it fast. He makes his eyes big and sincere. “If _Katie _says so.”

“Yeah,” Katie says, tugging on Nolan’s hand in excitement now. “You can come to McDonalds and the dinosaur playground with us.”

Nolan doesn’t remember agreeing to that, but. Whatever. He smiles awkwardly. “Maybe you can like, tell us the names of the dinosaurs.” 

TK blinks, looking between the two of them. “Uh, okay,” he says, sounding kind of dazed. “I mean, uh. I’ll try. I didn’t major in dinosaurs, you know?”

“Can you even do that?” Nolan wonders. “Is that a thing?”

“Yeah,” TK tells him. “It’s called being like, a palaeontologist? Something like that. Like Ross from _Friends_.”

“Oh,” Nolan says as TK grabs his coat from the hook on the back of the door and picks up his huge dorky-looking backpack from beside the desk at the front of the room. It’s half the size of him. What’s he keeping in there? Emergency puppies? “Hate that guy.”

“He’s the worst,” TK says emphatically. He turns off the light and ushers them out through the door, smiling and waving at a cleaning lady as she passes them in the corridor.

They head out of the building into the parking lot, Nolan keeping a tight grip on Katie’s hand. There isn’t even anyone driving around right now but, like. Imagine if she died in a parking lot and it was all Nolan’s fault.

“Do you think you’re a Chandler or a Joey or what?” TK continues, which is interesting because Nolan was under the impression that the conversation was over. “Because I always thought I was Joey but then I took this Buzzfeed quiz once that told me I was Phoebe. I guess you don’t really know me well enough to say if that’s true.”

“My sister thinks she’s a Monica,” is all Nolan has to contribute to this, nodding to indicate which car.

TK cocks his head at Nolan, crossing to the passenger side. “You know what? My gut’s telling me you’re a Rachel, but you’re giving me Chandler face right now.”

“Okay,” Nolan says, hoping that will be enough to get TK to stop talking.

&&&

It isn’t.

Nolan learns a lot about TK during this journey. Like, a _lot. _He learns that TK moved down from Ontario last year with his roommate Lawson, but Lawson spends most of his time at his girlfriend’s house now, so TK’s thinking about getting a dog for the company. He learns that TK’s family still live up in Ontario, and that he has a brother, and that he misses them all a lot. He learns that TK is allergic to almonds, and that he watched the second Terminator movie last night while he graded homework. He learns that TK and Katie both know all the words to ‘How Far I’ll Go’ from _Moana_, because TK breaks off in the middle of a story about learning to ride a bike in order to sing along with her flawlessly, if completely out of tune, when the song comes up on Nolan’s carefully curated Katie playlist.

“Am I talking too much?” TK asks after a while. He laughs a little sheepishly before Nolan can respond. “Stupid question. You have to just stop me, okay, bud? Otherwise I’ll just – go and go and go.”

“Okay,” Nolan says slowly. “I’ll just tell you to shut up next time.”

TK laughs a little, looking down at his lap.

“Mommy says not to tell people to shut up,” Katie’s voice drifts over to Nolan from the backseat. “Remember?”

“Uhh,” Nolan says, Madison’s frowning face floating through his head again. “Sure, Katie. I was joking.”

“Sometimes grownups say stuff like that to each other and it sounds mean but like, it isn’t really?” TK says in a tone like he’s thinking out loud, craning around in his seat to look at Katie. “Like when I said a bad word last week in class.”

Nolan shoots him a questioning look and TK rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t like, a _really _bad one.”

“You dropped the special bucket on your foot.” Katie grins. “It was funny.”

TK reaches back and grabs Katie’s ankle, wiggling it around while she laughs.

“The special bucket?” Nolan asks.

“It’s this old hockey helmet I have, uh.” TK sits back in his seat. His eyes catch on Nolan’s hands wrapped around the steering wheel, fingernails painted black. Nolan straightens up in his seat, waiting for the inevitable bullshit, but TK just clears his throat and looks away. “Um. Yeah, I always pick out a star kid every week. Like, they do really good all week and then they get to wear the bucket during reading hour on Friday. It’s got all these stickers all over it, they get all pumped, it’s this whole thing.”

“Oh.” Nolan shifts his hands on the steering wheel. “You play hockey?” he asks, against his own better judgment.

TK shrugs one shoulder. “Used to play in a rec league back home. We sucked but I miss it, you know?” He smiles, face brightening. “You play?”

“Nope,” Nolan says, and pulls into a parking space. “Hey, look, we’re here.”

Katie gets a Happy Meal with a tiny little Lego Batman toy. TK and Nolan argue about it for ten minutes before they decide to split a huge order of nuggets rather than getting two separate ones.

“We’ll just ask them for two different sauces, Jesus,” TK says, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like it’s a problem.”

“But then when we go up to the counter we have to like, talk to somebody,” Nolan points out.

TK rolls his eyes again even harder, although he’s kind of laughing now too. “How do you get through the day, bro? Don’t you work in retail?”

“Doesn’t mean I like talking to people,” Nolan says, and hurries Katie off to sit at a table.

TK gets a strawberry milkshake.

“Did you want some?” he asks when he sees Nolan staring. He offers him the straw, all chewed up and slick from his saliva.

“No,” Nolan says, cheeks heating up as he clutches his black coffee. He only likes the vanilla milkshakes anyway.

He wonders if things are going to get awkward when Katie goes off on the dinosaur playground by herself, leaving them with no social buffer, but TK talks so much that it never has a chance to get awkward. Nolan eventually interrupts him midstream, just to try and regain some control over the conversation.

“So how come you’re a teacher?” he breaks in. They’re sat on a bench watching Katie play on one of those chunky guys with the really long necks and tails – the diplodocus. It’s painted purple. Turns out TK doesn’t know shit about dinosaur names; they had to Google it.

TK snorts. “What, you think I’m bad at it?”

Nolan looks at him, startled. Talk about sensitive. “No,” he says. TK shoots him a sideways glance and Nolan feels his face pulling in strange directions, remembering all the questions he’s been asking Madison. “I wasn’t gonna say that. Don’t make it weird.”

“Oh, sorry,” TK says, the line of his mouth pulling up again in that crooked smile. “Didn’t know I was making it weird.”

“Well, you are.” Nolan sighs, shoving his hands further into the pockets of his jacket. That’s what he gets for trying to make conversation.

“I just like kids, you know?” TK shrugs, leaning his head back and watching Katie play. “They’re funny and they don’t hate everybody yet, and it’s pretty easy to keep them happy so long as you don’t mind making a fool of yourself every now and then.”

Nolan grunts. He’s never found kids that easy, not even Katie. When she and Madison moved back in with Nolan and his parents, he had to go from zero to a hundred like, incredibly fast. Seeing a kid a couple of times a year during the holidays is really different to living in the same house as them, it turns out. Like, Nolan loves Katie, but there was just so much stuff he didn’t know. He felt like he didn’t even know how to talk to her at first, what kind of stuff to ask. How to be the adult in every conversation.

“When they came to live with us, Katie, like, barely ever talked,” he says, thinking out loud. “It was only meant to be temporary. House is fucking crowded. But then Maddy said she was divorcing Andy for real, like it wasn’t just a separation thing, and stuff just got so messy with their house and everything.” He stops, weirded out by how many words just came out of his mouth. “I don’t know why I told you that.”

TK shrugs. “Just got one of those faces.”

Nolan elbows him in the side. It’s a little overfamiliar but TK gives the impression of being messy with his space, like he wouldn’t care. When he was talking in the car his hands were flying everywhere, the whole time; Nolan had had to remind himself it would be rude to grab them, make him hold still.

TK drops his head, grinning down at his lap before he pulls himself back up with a sigh.

“Katie’s doing great in class,” he offers, sniffing. Maybe he’s catching a cold. Teachers must get sick off the kids, like, all the time. “If you’re like, worried or whatever. You don’t need to be. She’s a great kid, she likes to read a lot. Gonna be a real brainbox.”

“Yeah,” Nolan says, watching Katie as she zooms down a slide built into the spine of a bright orange pterodactyl. Nolan knows that one without having to Google it: the big bird-looking motherfuckers who freaked the shit out of him in _Jurassic Park 3_.

“And I’m not even saying that just because you’re built like a brick shithouse and could probably break my arms,” TK continues.

Nolan elbows him again.

&&&

Over the next couple of weeks, Nolan comes to the conclusion that TK is well-suited to being around small children for extended periods of time because, in a lot of ways, he is an adult-sized child himself. His whole vibe is deeply chaotic and Nolan has no idea how he pulls his shit together coherently enough to be a teacher, but the kids love him so much it’s like nobody cares.

“Did you actually like, learn stuff?” Nolan presses Katie in the middle of a stream-of-consciousness relation of a minor squabble she had with her friend Melanie about who stole another friend’s colored pens. They were scented, too, which makes it a really big deal.

“Yeah,” Katie says, screwing up her face as she thinks. “We learned about fish today.”

“Fish,” Nolan repeats. He pictures TK doing an impression of a puffer fish. Blowing his cheeks out big, eyes all wide and googly. “What, uh. What kinds of fish?”

Katie throws her arms wide. “All kinds!” she sings, and then runs off.

Nolan’s mom lowers her book and narrows her eyes at him from across the room.

“What?” Nolan asks.

She turns to Madison, sat next to her on the couch. “Is TK the one who looks like a pirate? Goatee, roguish, kind of short?”

“Yep,” Madison says without looking up, flipping a page in her magazine.

“Huh,” his mom says. “Around the same age as Nolan?”

“Yep,” Madison says again, drawing it out this time with a hint of a smirk.

“Interesting,” is all his mom says, and then goes back to her book.

Nolan looks at his dad for help, but he’s frowning down at his phone and pretending not to hear even though he’s not wearing his glasses and wouldn’t be able to read the screen for shit. So Nolan has no idea what any of that is about.

He’s dicking around on his X-box a couple of days later when Katie gets home from school and flies up the stairs to bang on his bedroom door, nearly frothing with excitement. He can’t get her to slow down enough to explain so he just has to follow her downstairs, her tiny hand wrapped around his wrist.

In Katie’s class, Madison tells Nolan in longsuffering tones once they get downstairs, they have this old-fashioned Polaroid camera that TK uses as a bargaining chip to get the kids to do nice stuff for each other. Kind of like the special bucket, although the Polaroid is a daily incentive rather than a weekly one. One kid every day gets picked to take a picture of whatever they want using the Polaroid, and then they get to take it home to show to their parents. 

Today, Katie got to take the picture.

“That’s cool,” Nolan says, still a little bewildered. It’s just a dumb picture, right? Kids are so weird. They’ve got no idea how big the world is yet.

But Katie is stood in front of him, so short she only just reaches his knee, her cheeks all rosy and cute-looking. She’s holding her picture tightly to her chest. So Nolan asks: “What picture did you take?”

She beams, thrusting it towards him. Of course it turns out to be a picture of TK, Katie’s favourite person in the world who isn’t related to her by blood. He’s wearing another stupid cap, back to front so Nolan can’t read what it says. Maybe it’s GONE FISHING. What do all the other teachers think of that? Does his boss think he’s like, an elementary school teacher version of a maverick cop who doesn’t play by the rules? Is he just charming them all into ignoring it with his stupid crooked smile?

TK’s not even doing anything interesting in the photo. He’s just smiling at the camera, looking surprised and maybe a little touched. A little embarrassed. His eyes are crinkling at the edges.

Madison coughs and Nolan blinks. “Cute,” he says as he hands the photo back, not sure if this is the right thing to say. Katie doesn’t seem to mind, taking it back and beaming down at it. “Why did you get it?”

“Cause I helped Benny with his math,” she says quietly.

Nolan smiles and ruffles her hair. She leans into it before turning her face suddenly and mock-biting his forearm with a growl. Tiny weirdo.

“Nice,” he tells her.

She shrugs, patting his arm delicately. “I wanted the picture,” she says, and then skips away.

Nolan’s still blinking at that when Maddy knocks on the table directly in front of him to get his attention.

“You still okay to pick her up on Thursday?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Nolan says. He shifts in his seat. “Um. Do you want me to just do it like, whenever I’m free, though? Like, will that make it easier for you?”

Maddy looks so surprised that Nolan feels vaguely guilty for not offering to help before. He got out of the habit in the last couple of years for obvious reasons, but that isn’t really an excuse for forgetting he could do it now. Gotta start picking stuff back up. “Well, sure. That would be great, Patty. I just didn’t think –”

“I mean, maybe sometimes I won’t,” Nolan mumbles. “Because my head –”

Maddy touches his hand quickly and then pulls back. “I know. But – like, Monday through Thursday?”

“Monday through Thursday,” Nolan confirms. So long as his brain cooperates.

The photo keeps drifting back into his mind over the next couple of days. Is that why TK loves kids so much? Because they can be sweet like that, out of nowhere? He can’t have known Katie was going to choose him and when kids do that, it means you’re _really _chosen. It’s different when something pure loves you. Even Nolan knows that. 

Last week when Nolan got to the school a little early, he’d hung out for a while in the corridor, waiting for Katie’s class to finish. He’d heard TK’s voice drifting through the door and went over to push it open.

TK was sat on a chair in the reading area and the kids were all spread out in front of him on the carpet, sat criss cross apple sauce. About half of them had their hands stuck up in the air. It was called question corner or something; Katie had told him about it. Five minutes at the end of every day when the kids got to ask TK any question they liked, and he had to try and answer. It sounded like the worst idea ever to Nolan, but what did he know.

TK did a goofy zooming motion with his arm and wound up pointing at a little girl with short blonde hair and owlishly large eyes.

“Samantha,” he said. “Go.”

“How long to get from here to Jupiter?” she asked, twisting her fingers together in her lap. She stuttered over her words a little, especially Jupiter.

TK had frowned. “Not sure,” he said. “A long time, buddy.”

“Longer than it takes to brush your teeth?” interjected a small boy with round glasses and dark skin.

TK smiled. “Way longer. I think longer than it takes to become a grown up, even.”

One of the kids giggled, clearly amused by the idea of that amount of time. TK winked at the little girl who asked the question. “I’ll find out how many years for you tonight and we’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?”

Nolan shifted against the doorframe. TK could’ve just Googled it on his phone or something but then maybe that wasn’t the point. The kids would have to wait around for him to do that and maybe they’d get bored, and – there was just something cool about it, that TK was going to go home and look it up for her. Like in an encyclopaedia or something, if he has those. He probably doesn’t. Nolan doesn’t know. 

When the bell rang all the kids shot up, already chattering among themselves, hustling to go and pick up their stuff. TK had to whistle to get their attention back but when he did, every single one of them turned around to look. Like tiny little sunflowers, turning toward the sun.

&&&

Nolan works in a sporting goods store in Center City. He’s really bad at it but that doesn’t seem to matter to his manager, who he suspects might be running some kind of scam under the table. He doesn’t care whether or not that’s true; she can do that if she wants, so long as she leaves him out of it. He’s there to clock his hours and go the fuck home.

It gets kind of difficult sometimes when she puts him on openings and he doesn’t sleep well the night before, though. When Jamie left and Melissa started asking Nolan to sub in for his shifts, Nolan had opened his mouth to tell her that it wouldn’t really work for him because the chances of him having a migraine dramatically increases if he doesn’t get a solid eight hours, but it just didn’t happen. He’d literally opened his mouth to tell her that, and what had come out was: “Okay.”

He’d sat out in his car for a long time afterwards, staring at the steering wheel and picturing how that conversation would have gone. She would’ve been sympathetic, probably – she’s pretty nice, scams aside. She wouldn’t want to make this anymore difficult for him than it already is.

But people always get that look, the one Nolan hates. It’s not even pity, or not always. It’s just like, they know this really personal thing about him now, this weakness that he has. They get to know this thing – this thing he can barely even think about – and then they get to think about it all they want. It’s hard to get past that part.

One day in early April, Nolan arrives at Katie’s school fresh off an early shift which stretched into inadvisable overtime when Amanda called in sick and TK is, like. He’s wearing a plain white t-shirt with the sleeves cut short enough that Nolan can see part of a tattoo winding around the top of his left arm. He can’t make out what it is from this far away but it looks like some kind of bird, like ducks or something. He wonders if TK has any others, hidden underneath his clothes. If he does, they’re probably really dumb.

TK’s got his snapback on backwards and he’s smiling as a small child tries to climb up onto his shoulders. He bends himself into a human jungle gym so she doesn’t fall while she crawls up over his back, and then he reaches back with a look of pure concentration on his face to pull her back around to his front, bearing her full weight with one arm. He hefts her up onto his hip and flicks her nose, laughing when she scrunches up her face. He’s not even breathing hard.

Nolan’s just standing there like an idiot staring at this when TK spots him in the doorway.

“Hey, man,” he calls. He waves enthusiastically then gets the girl he’s carrying to wave at Nolan too, moving her tiny chubby arm gently as she giggles.

Nolan waves back because it’s, like, a kid, so he has to, right? He feels his face flood with color at the huge grin on TK’s face. This would be a lot to deal with on any given day but he’s not feeling so hot right now; he can feel the nub of pressure building slowly over his right eye. He’s got enough time to drive him and Katie home before it gets any worse, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t starting to hurt. The migraines that can push through his preventative tend to be nasty ones, for obvious reasons.

“How’s it going?” TK asks, coming over to him. He has to step over a couple of crawling kids to do it, pointing his feet delicately to avoid stepping on any stray body parts. Nolan eyes the kid attached to his hip, hiding her face shyly in TK’s neck. She’s not Katie but she’s still small and cute, with a little snub nose and bright red springy hair. TK probably knows her middle name and her favourite color and all about her. If Nolan asked, TK would probably know what she wants to be when she grows up. “You just looming around in the doorway for kicks now or what?”

“Way to make me sound as creepy as possible,” Nolan says. His voice is a little lower and more strained than usual, but hopefully TK won’t notice that.

“I meant in like, a cool Batman way,” TK says. He tilts his head. “Although thinking about it, maybe you’ve got more of a Robin vibe.”

Nolan rolls his eyes. “If anyone’s Robin here, dude, it’s definitely not me.”

“You could be one of the big beefy ones,” TK continues with a smirk. “Like, really big and really mean. Doesn’t that sound like you?”

Nolan sighs. “I’m not mean,” he says, making his voice deliberately gentle and quiet. He does feel kind of mean right now, but that doesn’t mean he wants to hear TK say it. Whatever.

TK’s smirk softens before he clears his throat. “A Robin who argues a lot,” he finishes off.

“Where’s Katie?” Nolan asks pointedly, folding his arms across his chest.

TK nods over at the reading corner near the window. Katie’s tiny body is bent nearly double in order to look at the big hardback book spread over her lap. Nolan can see the big bright pools of primary colors spread across the pages from here. He hopes it’s something good. She likes books about dragons and fairies and stuff – Madison bought her this huge tome of myths and legends for kids last year for Christmas and she didn’t put it down all day.

“Hey, Myra,” TK says, jiggling the girl he’s carrying. “Can you go get Katie for us?”

The girl nods shyly and TK sets her down on the floor. She goes running off.

Nolan raises an eyebrow. “I could have just got her myself, dude.”

“Myra likes to have a task,” TK explains.

Nolan nods and stretches, cracking his back. If he had to rank the things he dislikes about his job from one to ten, ‘standing still in a corner for eight hours under fluorescent lighting and waiting for someone to him ask a question about tube socks’ would rank at a solid nine. He rubs his forehead.

“Hey, are you okay?” TK asks. “You look kinda pale. You wanna sit down?”

Nolan snaps his eyes open. TK’s watching him closely. He looks all concerned, serious in a way he isn’t usually still enough to manage. Nolan doesn’t really know what to do with that.

“I’m fine,” he says. It’s a little snappy. Whatever. “What’d you guys do today?” Madison always gets on his ass if he forgets to ask.

TK gives him a look but Nolan just raises an eyebrow, not budging. TK rolls his eyes.

“We made flags,” he tells Nolan, gesturing to a table nearby which is covered in a bunch of sparkly-bright pieces of paper with no discernible pattern. He wraps his hand gently around Nolan’s wrist and tugs him over to look. Nolan goes, too surprised at the contact to protest. “For like, other planets? Or made-up countries or whatever. Ones that don’t really exist.”

“Oh.” Nolan thinks about this for a minute. TK’s fingers are warm and firm. He runs hot; Nolan’s noticed that before, sitting next to him on the playground bench, or when they’ve passed Katie between them. “Shouldn’t you be teaching them about flags that like, actually exist?”

“We did that yesterday,” TK tells him, looking shifty. “Besides, I just wanted them to think about what might be out there, what could be. You know? It’s nice. They’ve got so much imagination, it’s gotta go somewhere.”

He shrugs, looking down fondly at the kids’ art. It looks like a bunch of glittery crap with no rhyme or reason to Nolan, but he stands there and listens while TK points out each different kid’s flag and what the story was behind it. He kind of tugs on Nolan’s wrist every now and then, more out of excitement than the actual need to move him somewhere.

Eventually he gets to Katie’s.

“And here’s your girl,” he says, picking one flag out of the many. The background is colored in bright green and it has a big circle drawn in the middle in black. The circle has a bunch of dots in it.

“What’s that supposed to be?” Nolan asks.

TK’s grinning. “When I asked her, she said it was a whale with a lot of eyes.”

They both assess the flag in silence for a moment before Nolan lets out a loud snort, swiping his free hand across his face.

“I know,” TK says, still grinning. “Fuckin’ love kids, man.”

“Yeah,” Nolan says, looking at the flag again. A whale with a lot of eyes. God, Katie’s such a weirdo. They’ve definitely got to put that shit on the fridge.

TK finally lets go of him to delicately detach the flag from its pile. He hands it to Nolan and their hands touch on the paper. It’s Nolan’s fault – he’s being stupid, fumbling and tired from the long day. His wrist feels weird cold-warm and clammy where TK’s hand was touching him and it’s making him irritable, because he can’t figure out whether he’s pissed TK did it in the first place or whether he wants it back.

He doesn’t look up and meet TK’s eyes or anything embarrassing like that, but it’s a close call. He feels the hair rise on the back of his neck as if it had happened anyway. Stupid fucking migraines. Everything gets harder with this extra shit in his head, _everything_.

“You want me to call Madison, man?” TK asks quietly.

“No,” Nolan snaps. He rubs a hand over his eyes. He tries to relax his grip on the paper, stop it crinkling. “No. I’m fine, I just –”

“It’s fine,” TK says quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t – it’s not my place, just, Katie said – sorry.”

_Katie said._ Nolan opens his mouth and shuts it again. “What did Katie say.”

“Just that you get bad headaches,” TK says, still watching him carefully. “She didn’t mean anything by it, man. She just worries about you.”

Nolan looks over at Katie, curled up with Myra, both trying to fit on the same damn chair so they can look at Katie’s book. This was something he hated even when his head was at its worst and he barely had the energy to think: the way the migraines focus attention on him from all quarters, including the least equipped to help. It had felt like such a burden at the time that now whenever Nolan remembers it makes him feel guilty. What kind of asshole gets annoyed with people worrying about him? But it was just something else to think about, like all the times they drove home from his appointments at the Headache Center with Nolan sitting silently in the back, his mom pretending not to cry in the passenger seat while his dad white-knuckled the steering wheel.

“Had a bad couple of years,” is all Nolan says.

“Not my place,” Travis says again, holding his hands up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Nolan says, looking back around at him and frowning. The stupid thing is, usually he _would_ mean that, re: literally all the stuff he was just thinking about. He’s used to dealing with it on his own, or at least wanting to. People want more from you once they feel like they’ve given time, support, and resources they can’t get back. But it’s hard to explain any of that without sounding like a dick. 

“It’s on me, okay?” he tries. “Shut up.”

TK’s mouth twitches unwillingly. “Okay.”

He still doesn’t look convinced. Nolan sighs, rubbing at the spot of pressure over his right eye. Travis follows the movement of his hand with his big puppy dog eyes, looking like he wants to dive in there and fix it all on his own.

“I’m okay to drive,” Nolan tells him honestly. “For real. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I could, not with Katie in the car.”

TK takes this in and nods. His hand twitches forward at his side before he catches it, clearing his throat.

“Alright,” he says. He smiles, but it’s not as bright as it should be. Still kind of worried and fixed. Nolan feels a pull in the base of his stomach, helpless. “I’m gonna hold you to that, man.”

Nolan thinks about it for like five seconds and then sighs and holds out his hand, too tired to dance around it. “Give me your phone.”

TK’s eyes go wide. “Um.”

Nolan rolls his eyes, feeling his cheeks flush. “I’m not, like, hitting on you, I’m just – give me your phone, I’ll text you when we’re home.”

Travis is already nodding rapidly, his face going kind of red. “Yeah, good, fine. Good idea.”

Nolan raises an eyebrow at him. “So?”

“Oh.” TK digs his phone out of his pocket and hands it over. It’s scuffed to shit, obviously; doesn’t even have a case. Screen cracked. There’s a worn-thin sticker slapped on the back which reads GREAT JOB! in bright orange letters.

“You know, Katie said there were no humans on her planet,” TK tells him while Nolan keys in his number. “Just plants and trees and animals. Weird whales, whatever. Total silence, all the time.”

“Mood,” Nolan mumbles, and TK laughs.

&&&

Nolan texts TK _not dead _when they get home, and then he takes a couple of Imitrex and passes out for sixteen hours.

When he wakes up the next morning his head is clearer, even if his mouth is dry as a fucking bone and he feels like shit from having slept in his clothes. His mom came in at some point and left a glass of water on his nightstand, so he sits up and drinks some while he picks up his phone.

He has eight texts from TK. He makes himself drink all the water and put the empty glass down again on the nightstand before he reads them.

16:44 _thanks fr the detailed update_

16:53 _glad ur not dead. hope u feel better soon. not used 2 u looking like that much crap_

17:20 _kt told this really funny joke at school today, u should ask her to tell u _

17:35 _maybe uv already heard it, idk_

19:14 _ur prob asleep _

19.36 _guess ur not gonna answer cuz ur asleep. im gonna stop talking now_

23:25 _do you play cod_

23:28 _you kind of seem like you play cod_

Nolan puts his phone down on the bed and shoves his face into his hands for a second, silently screaming. Then he picks his phone up again to type out a reply.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woo thanks to everyone who read/commented/left kudos so far <3 hope you like this chapter!

After less than a week of TK having Nolan’s number, Nolan has to start leaving his phone in his locker at work or risk a formal warning. TK’s texts aren’t even anything important – not _ever _– it’s just that he makes these outlandish statements all the time that Nolan feels, like, sanity-bound to dispute.

TK also finds Nolan on Twitter. He DMs Nolan up to ten cute animal videos a day, to which Nolan does not reply.

“Okay, what the fuck is up?” Madison asks one evening, after Nolan’s phone buzzes yet again while they’re watching _Judge Judy _reruns. Katie’s in bed, so it’s swearing hours in the Patrick household. “For the love of God, put your phone on silent if you’re gonna have someone hitting you up every five minutes.”

“It’s just TK,” Nolan mumbles, swiping open his lockscreen. TK sent him a feral hogs meme. Nolan snorts, likes the tweet, and puts his phone on silent as requested. There’s no need to reply; TK is just going to send him something else in five minutes.

“TK,” Madison repeats.

“Yep,” Nolan says.

“Katie’s teacher?”

“Yep.”

There’s a pause that makes Nolan look up from Instagram.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Madison says. Her face looks weird and set, like she’s actively trying to keep it blank. Nolan’s too tired to try and figure out what that means. “Just – isn’t he a lot, for you? Lot of energy?”

“Yeah, he’s a pest,” Nolan says, turning back to his phone. “Never met someone who talks so much.”

“Huh,” Madison says. “Well, how about that.”

Nolan isn’t really listening – TK just texted him _do you think bees have mouths? _

“I don’t know why you’re still arguing with me,” he tells TK the next day when he’s picking Katie up. “They have to have mouths, dude, or how else would they eat anything?”

“Do they eat, though?” TK asks cryptically. He’s midway through cleaning up the soft play section, bent over with his arms full of toys. All the other kids are gone by now, and so is Lindy. He shot TK a wink and a thumbs up as he went out the door, which Nolan had assumed was par for the course given their nonverbal communication skills, until he saw how it made TK scowl. “Like, have you ever seen a bee’s mouth?”

“They need to eat to live, dumbass. Besides, you think they’re carrying the pollen around in like, baskets?”

“They’re not eating it though, right?” TK asks, straightening up. He has a fuzzy giraffe with a purple stain on its butt tucked under his arm. “Because they use it for honey? So say they _do _have mouths, are they like, carrying the pollen around in their mouths?” He draws in a sharp breath. “Oh my God, Patty, what if they’re carrying it around in their little _hands?_”

“This is such a dumb conversation,” Nolan says. “I don’t even know why I’m still talking to you.”

“I’m going to find out all the answers, and I’m gonna tell the kids about it tomorrow,” TK swears. He’s said this at least four times since Nolan has known him, twice in response to topics that Nolan knows for a fact they haven’t discussed in class. Is that just how he approaches teaching? _Here’s this cool and/or weird thing I found out on the internet, sure hope it’s appropriate to teach six-year olds?_

“Whatever,” Nolan says. “Are you coming with us or not?”

TK blinks. “You were waiting for me?”

“I mean –” Nolan stops, feeling heat pool in his cheeks. “Not, like. On purpose.”

Katie was just really engrossed in her book when Nolan got here, curled up in the reading corner in what she clearly thinks of as Her Chair, and he didn’t want to disturb her. TK had been right there with his stupid camo cap and his stupid questions. Nolan hadn’t thought about it.

“Okay, yeah, I’ll,” TK says, flipping up the cap of his hat and nearly dropping the fuzzy giraffe in the process. He’s smiling, crooked little mouth turning up at the corner. “I’ll just, uh. Tidy this stuff up, and then I’m good to go.”

“Cool,” Nolan says, and goes over to read with Katie until TK’s ready to leave, ignoring the way his heart is beating slightly too fast.

&&&

TK’s apartment is way over the other side of town from Nolan and Katie’s house, but the journey always seems really short because TK talks so fucking much. It seems way longer the first time Nolan purposely drives across town to see him rather than just dropping him off on the curb outside.

They’ve been texting about _Sin City_ because it’s back on Netflix and Nolan’s watching it on his laptop in bed, thinking about smoking but not actually doing it because his mom got mad the last time he hotboxed his room. Not like he’s had much choice for the last couple of years, but it’s times like this when still living with his parents kind of sucks.

_2nd one’s good too, _he tells TK.

_not seen it, no spoilers, _TK replies.

_got a copy, _Nolan texts. _u can borrow it_

_ok, _TK says, and then: _or we could just watch it together_

And a few seconds later: _if u want_

Nolan bites his lip. _but ive already seen it, _he sends, and then when he doesn’t get a reply after fifteen minutes: _im kidding_

_ok asshole _Travis sends back immediately. _see if i make u popcorn_

He does make popcorn; Nolan can smell it all the way down the hall from his apartment when he goes over a couple of days later. He’s kind of frowning about it when TK opens the door.

TK blinks. “Wow,” he says. “Nice to see you, too.”

“Shut up,” Nolan mutters, shouldering past him.

He’s surprised by how well-decorated it is, by which he means decorated at all. He’d been picturing some kind of bleak armchair facing an X-box situation but there’s like, framed prints and cushions and stuff, and at least the living room appears to have a full complement of furniture. There’s an unfortunate _Live Laugh Love_ decal on the wall over the TV and even the ominous scent of pot pourri coming from somewhere, although Nolan can’t figure out where.

Nolan goes to the bathroom. The only thing in there besides the toilet, shower and sink is a small mirror on the wall. It’s attached at what must be TK’s height, because Nolan has to lean down to see himself in it. The mirror’s frame is made of gold plastic and is shaped like a pineapple.

“Did you buy all this shit yourself or did your mom decorate for you?” Nolan asks when he comes back.

“I did it myself, dude,” TK says, frowning. “I’m twenty-two.”

Nolan holds his hands up. “Okay, okay.”

He looks around. There’s no evidence of anyone other than Travis living here.

“Lawson hasn’t been back for, like, a week,” TK says glumly, apparently reading his mind. “He’s definitely gonna bail on me sometime this year.”

“Shit,” Nolan says. “Can you even afford this place by yourself?” He has no idea how much money teachers make.

TK crosses his eyes and makes a defeated whining noise.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah,” TK sighs. “I love him but this wasn’t the deal. We were supposed to room together, you know? That was the whole point, so we could split the cost.” He pauses. “Financially but also, like. Emotionally. He’s my _guy._”

“What did he move here for?” Nolan asks, leaning against the back of the couch. “A job? He met the girl after, right?”

“Yeah,” Travis sighs again. “Claire. No, like. I get it, you know? She’s really nice, and everyone wants somebody. I don’t blame him for getting on with his life, I just –”

“Don’t want to get stuck here alone like a loser?” Nolan fills in, smirk pulling up the side of his mouth.

TK sticks his tongue out at him. “What?” he asks, walking off into the kitchen and calling over his shoulder. “You mean a 22-year-old Canadian who spends most of his time trying to get glitter out of his hair and wondering if this is the year he’s finally going to catch chicken pox doesn’t seem like a catch to you?”

“You never had chicken pox as a kid?” Nolan calls. “What the fuck?”

“Immune system of a god, buddy,” TK shouts from the kitchen.

“You know the glitter thing is your fault, though, right?” Nolan asks when TK comes back with a beer in each hand. “You’re creating this problem yourself. You’re literally the one in charge of the glitter.”

TK rolls his eyes and hands him a beer. “Listen, I didn’t get into elementary school teaching for like, the money and fame,” he says before taking a long drink. “I got into it purely for the mess.”

“Should put that on your Tinder profile.”

“What, really?” TK asks, fiddling with the tab on his beer as he looks at Nolan. They’re standing close enough now that he has to tilt his head up a little to meet Nolan’s eyes. Nolan kind of wants to stop leaning on the back of the couch and unfold to his full height, just to make TK do it more. 

“No,” Nolan says. If TK had Tinder, his profile picture would be one of those where the guy’s wearing waders and holding up a giant fish. He’d put something about how his job was to teach kids but really, they were the ones teaching him. “Not really, dumbass. You should put the thing about chicken pox. Girls love it when you talk about infectious diseases.”

TK laughs and looks away, scratching the back of his neck. 

“I don’t even know how to use Tinder,” he admits.

Nolan cocks an eyebrow. “Dude, everyone knows how to use Tinder. You just like, swipe left or right. It’s the easiest app in the entire world.”

TK rolls his eyes and snorts. “Maybe for you.” Before Nolan has time to unpack that, he’s talking again. “It just was never worth it when I lived in the middle of fucking nowhere, and then when I got here I – there was too much shit to do, y’know?”

He gestures around the apartment. Nolan looks around on reflex, waiting for all this shit to jump out at him.

“What?” he says after a minute. “Like, your job? That you do during business hours?”

TK laughs in his face.

“Oh my God,” he says. “You have so clearly never hung out with a teacher before. Jesus Christ. Sit the fuck down.”

Nolan sits down on the couch. After about fifteen minutes of TK piling class prep materials onto his lap he tries to get up again, but TK won’t let him.

“Oh no, you asked,” he says, pressing another stack of spelling homework into Nolan’s hands. “You’re gonna get it all, man.”

“This is stupid,” Nolan says. “I want you to stop handing me things.”

“People think teachers have it easy because the school day stops at three and we get summer vacation,” Travis rants, completely ignoring him. “But there’s like, so much extra shit to do on top of that! You have to plan all your lessons, and you have to grade everything they do, and you have to prep for parent-teacher night, and you have to write up reports about their progress once every semester even though they’re just tiny babies, and you have to reply to all G’s stupid emails about potential health and safety violations –”

“Who’s G?” Nolan interrupts, just to make it stop.

“The school principal,” Travis says, huffing. He’s finally stopped piling stuff into Nolan’s lap, though, so that’s something. He’s sat with his legs folded under him, knees nudging into Nolan’s thighs. “Giroux. He’s great, man, he’s just – he’s always jamming me up, you know? Telling me I can’t do something.”

“I didn’t think you ever planned anything,” Nolan mumbles, sorting through the stacks of paper on top of his knees. “I thought you just turned up every day and did your thing. Like a birthday party magician.”

TK looks torn between arguing and thanking him.

“Do all the other teachers do this stuff too?” Nolan asks.

Travis starts giving a long and involved answer, but Nolan isn’t really listening. He’s thinking about Travis sat here alone in his apartment every night, not going out or trying to date anybody because Philadelphia is fucking big and scary and it has too many people in it and Travis is from rural Ontario. He thinks about Travis watching old action movies on that tiny TV, sat on his couch surrounded by mismatching stationery and construction paper and handwriting exercises as the light from the screen flickers over his face. He thinks about Travis burning a sickly sweet scented candle way too close to all the huge piles of paper and tunelessly singing along to, like, ‘Take My Breath Away.’

It makes Nolan’s stomach hurt a little. Not because it’s charming – it’s kind of pathetic, actually. But it also isn’t unfamiliar. Nolan’s been there before himself, give or take the huge piles of paper. If pushed, he might concede that he’s still there right now. You just have to exchange the class prep for like, _Deadliest Catch_ marathons and getting really good at _Fortnite_.

TK’s like a succulent, Nolan decides as he watches him rant. Small and cute and deceptively simple, but then they turn out to be super needy when you least expect it. People always assume succulents don’t need much to survive, but they’re wrong about that. Nolan found this out when his mom got him one from the market last year – “to brighten up your room a little, honey” – and then it died after like a month because Nolan thought it was a cactus and he never had to water it. Succulents need way more attention than people think they do. You just have to know what kind to give.

“I’m hungry,” Nolan interrupts, to see what Travis will do.

He switches gears mid-sentence, without even pausing for breath. “Okay. I’ll get the popcorn. You want to order pizza?”

They forget to watch the movie.

&&&

They also didn’t even play _CoD_ or anything, Nolan realises the next day, and that was part of the whole reason they even started texting in the first place. Or like, not really, but it was tangential to the texting, and TK keeps bragging about how good he is. Nolan is interested to find out what he considers ‘good’.

His mom asks where he was over dinner the next night and doubletakes over TK’s name when Nolan tells her, which is maybe the first time the two statements ‘I went to TK’s house to bitch him out about not getting out more’ and ‘TK is my niece’s teacher’ really collide in Nolan’s head.

“You went over to his house?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Nolan says, still chewing. He pauses and swallows, the back of his neck starting to heat up. “Why? Is that bad?”

“No,” she says hastily, looking around at Madison and his dad for support. His dad looks up, face mostly uncomprehending, and Madison’s grinning into her wine glass. Katie is too busy concentrating – knife and fork too big for her tiny hands, but she insists on using the same ones they do – to pay attention. She’s used to hearing Nolan ribbing TK by now, anyway; it makes up like 60% of their rides home. “You just – well, I just can’t remember the last time you went over to see any of your friends, that’s all. I think it’s nice.”

Madison’s eyebrows rocket halfway up her forehead. There’s a pained pause.

“Thanks, Mom,” Nolan says, swallowing another mouthful of tuna casserole that now kind of tastes like cardboard. It’s not like he can say she’s wrong. It’s just one of those mom observations that comes out of nowhere and smacks you right between the eyes with brutal accuracy. Nolan ‘No Friends’ Patrick.

He used to have friends. Still does, probably. A couple of them, at least. But his family only moved to Philly right before Nolan’s migraines got really bad, and after that it was difficult to keep up anything outside the immediate circle of staying awake and alive and like, keeping his soul inside his fucking body. There was a period of about six months where he had one every couple of days, which he doesn’t remember much of. Even if he did, it would just be like, puking and crying and trying to fall asleep. Not a ton of fun to hang out with.

Even after it got less terrible than that, it still took the doctors a full year and change to find a preventative that worked for longer than a couple of weeks. By the time Nolan was getting back on his feet, people had moved on. They’d gone to college, met new girlfriends, moved away. Just like that. 

And it wasn’t like he had team as a safety net anymore, obviously.

“I didn’t mean –” his mom starts.

“It’s fine,” Nolan interrupts. She still looks really guilty, so he makes an effort to smile. “Promise.”

He thinks about it later when he’s trying to fall asleep, staring up at the ceiling. His mom is probably right and it was weird to go over to TK’s place like that. They don’t actually know each other that well, and TK is Katie’s teacher and everything. Nolan is rustier than he’d like to admit when it comes to interacting with people who aren’t members of his direct family.

Or maybe it’s that it _should _feel weird, but it doesn’t. Nolan hadn’t even thought about it until his mom brought it up. It was just easy to be there – easy to be in TK’s stupid apartment, with his little gold pineapple mirror and his horrible pot pourri. Taste in decorating like a middle-aged white woman driving a Subaru. It felt like comfort everywhere Nolan looked, even though he’d never been there before.

Maybe that’s because of TK’s job, too; he must know how to make scared things feel safe. He does that all the time.

&&&

Nolan’s been trying to work up to actually, you know, working out properly again. He got out of shape while the migraines were at their worst and he stayed out of shape for like a year after that, but it feels good to get back into it now. He likes the way it feels to stretch his body, remind himself what it’s capable of. Even if he isn’t really doing anything with it.

One day he shows up to get Katie having just come off of a workout run too long. He’s tired and he’s wearing ratty sweats and his hair’s still wet from the shower, dripping water down his back under his shirt. He sits outside the school in his car for five minutes trying to pull it up into a bun that doesn’t make his face look weird but then he catches sight of his reflection, his forehead wrinkled with concentration, and flushes red. Why the hell is he trying so hard? He thumbs his hair back behind his ears and gets out of the car.

“Oh, wow,” TK says in a choked voice when Nolan gets inside. “I mean, hi. Jesus.”

“What,” Nolan says flatly. Irritated or not, he’s still feeling those endorphins; he could probably pick TK up and dump him out the window if he wanted to. 

“Nothing!” TK says, then bites his lip. Nolan frowns. “That’s, ah. Different look for you.”

“Just came from the gym,” Nolan offers, as if the sweatpants don’t make that clear enough.

TK’s just nodding rapidly when Lindy walks between them, shepherding a child whose gender is not immediately obvious to Nolan from this far up. The kid’s giggling and making noise and generally taking up more than their fair share of space.

“Beep beep, come through,” Lindy says.

He looks at Nolan and raises his eyebrows, turning to TK. He says something in – Swedish? Russian? Whatever his native language is – and when TK just rolls his eyes, he starts laughing. Rude. How is Nolan supposed to know what he’s saying?

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, bud,” TK says, practically grinding his teeth.

Oskar continues to laugh as he hoists the kid up in his arms and carries them away.

“What the hell,” Nolan says. “Do I have something on my face or what?”

“No,” TK says. He sighs, folding his arms across his chest. “You don’t have anything on your face, Patty. Your face is perfect. What are you doing here, I thought it was – it’s Friday, I thought we were due for a Madison pick-up?”

“We were,” Nolan says, as _your face is perfect _floats through his head on a sea of question marks. “But, uh. I – she had a thing, and it was my day off, so. Here I am.”

They stand there staring at each other for a minute before something small and child-shaped runs directly into Nolan’s legs. He looks down.

“Katie,” he says, pretending to be surprised. “You found me. Good job.”

“Silly,” she says, clinging to his legs and trying to use them as a climbing wall. “I can always find you, because you’re so big.”

“Like a refrigerator,” TK suggests. “Or a redwood.”

Nolan raises an eyebrow. “You want a ride home or not?”

“A really grumpy redwood,” Travis amends. “And yeah, obviously I do.”

After TK’s conferred with Oskar about handing the remaining kids over to their parents so he doesn’t have to stay last for once, they go out to the car. Once they’re inside, TK looks at Nolan as he pulls the seatbelt across his body and his grip goes slack, the seatbelt whizzing back into its holder.

Nolan looks at him. “What’s with you today?”

“Uh, you’ve got –” TK gestures at Nolan’s head. “I didn’t know you’ve got, like – your ears?”

Nolan frowns at him until he realises TK must be talking about his daith piercings – tiny steel hoops nestled into the center crook of each ear. He should have already seen them because Nolan’s looped his hair behind his ears before, but whatever. He’s probably just really unobservant.

“Oh, yeah,” Nolan says. He puts his arm around the back of TK’s seat as he reverses out of the parking space. “Both of them.”

“Both,” TK repeats, very calm.

“TK, you should do your seatbelt,” Katie pipes up from the backseat. “I’ve done mine, and Uncle Patty did his.”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry, honey,” TK says, turning around to wink at her. She beams.

The seatbelt clicks but TK doesn’t let go of the strap, holding onto it like a kid with a comfort blanket.

“So when’d you get ‘em?” he asks.

Nolan shrugs. “Couple of years ago.” He keeps his eyes on the road. “My sister found this thing on reddit, said it was supposed to help with migraines. Like acupuncture.”

“Oh.” TK fidgets, still staring at the side of Nolan’s head. Nolan fights the urge to pull his hair out from behind his ears, let it fall like a curtain over his face. “Did it?”

“Not so’s you’d notice,” says Nolan. “But it’s a bi – uh, pain to get them changed or taken out, so.”

He stops talking. No one needs to know this much. If he carries on, he’ll wind up telling Travis about the time he nearly got a nose ring a couple of months after crashing out of hockey for good, because it wasn’t like his coach was going to complain. Nolan could do whatever he wanted. Paint his nails, grow his hair down to his waist. No one was going to give a shit anymore.

TK’s quiet for a couple of blocks, which might be a new record.

“You’ve got tattoos, don’t you,” he says eventually, in a fatalistic tone of voice. It’s not even a question. “You’ve got like, a ton of stupid tattoos hidden under there somewhere. I know you have.”

Katie giggles. She likes Nolan’s ink, helped him pick a few. He got the astronaut for her.

“They’re not stupid,” Nolan protests instinctively.

TK crows in triumph, turning fully sideways in his seat.

“Oh, you do,” he says, full-body delighted. “You do, you do. They’re terrible. They’re like – they’re like, Kermit the frog or something. Spongebob.” He gasps. “Mr _Burns_.”

“Shut up,” Nolan instructs, trying not to smile. This is so absurd. TK is, like, actively insulting him right now, in front of Nolan’s tiny niece. Nolan should not be reinforcing that.

“Do you have one on your ribs?” TK asks. He drops his voice. “Please tell me you have a sexy tattoo of Mr Burns on your ribs.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” Nolan says, which makes TK punch him in the arm. “Jesus. Okay, they’re mostly on my thighs, shut up.”

TK chokes.

“Your _thighs_?” he repeats. “You have shitty thigh tattoos. Oh my God, of course you do. Of _course_.”

“Don’t curse, man,” Nolan hisses, checking the rearview mirror. Katie is, obviously, paying them way too much attention – staring with owl-wide eyes, excited that the grownups are doing something bad.

TK claps his hand over his mouth like a children’s TV host as he turns around to look at her.

“I’m so sorry, Katie,” he says, voice muffled. His eyes are huge and mournful. “I didn’t mean to swear.”

“It’s okay,” she says, with great dignity. “I heard you say a bad word in class before anyway.”

“Oh, really?” Nolan asks, raising an eyebrow.

Travis’s face is going pink. Nolan has to force himself to look back out at the road.

“Yeah, but,” TK says. “Uh.”

“Which bad word?” Nolan asks in response to that brilliant defence.

“Not one of the _really_ bad ones,” TK tells him. He leans forward, his voice low and teasing. “Anyway, we weren’t talking about me.” He taps Nolan on the thigh, too high up. No fucking boundaries, that’s his problem. “Tell me what you got, man, c’mon.”

Nolan squirms around in his seat a little, his face heating up. He can’t get past his initial instinct, which is to say that if TK wants to see them so bad, Nolan could just show him. As if that wouldn’t be offering to show TK his thighs. He can sort of see how it would unfold, in his mind – the semi-awed, semi-amused look on TK’s face, tracing the thin black lines of the cupid, the astronaut, the heart, all with the ragged tip of his thumbnail. In this scenario, Nolan would be sat sideways on TK’s couch with his legs spread, leaving enough room for TK to sit in between if he were kneeling on the cushions. It’s always a little too cold in TK’s apartment, so goosebumps would be pimpling on the skin of Nolan’s inner thighs where TK was touching him.

“Like yours is any better,” Nolan says, to distract himself. He clears his throat. “Stupid ducks or whatever.”

“Duck hunting is awesome,” TK says. Nolan can hear the grin in his voice without even turning to look. “You should shut up.”

“You should learn a better comeback,” Nolan says.

TK splutters with the effort of not making a ‘your mom’ joke in front of Katie, which Nolan chooses to interpret as a win.

&&&

The first time Nolan sleeps over at Travis’s apartment is kind of an accident.

It’s a Saturday Nolan has off for once, so they meet up at a juice bar at like one in the afternoon and then they were going to go to a movie, but they spend too long arguing about whether to see _Detective Pikachu_ or the third _John Wick_ and they miss all the afternoon showings, so they just decide to go back to TK’s apartment instead.

“I see your game,” TK says as they’re trailing out of the movie theater. “You think I don’t, but I do. You can’t outrun the _Cats_ trailer forever, bud.”

“Shut up,” Nolan grumbles. “It’s just. What _size_ are they supposed to be? Because the furniture’s all weird and they look like people but they’re not people-sized. It’s confusing.”

“You can just say ‘scary’,” TK says as he tugs Nolan into a nearby Wawa by the front pocket of his hoodie. “C’mon, I need toothpaste and shit. Dishwasher tablets, batteries. Adult stuff. You wouldn’t know anything about that, freeloader.”

“Shut up,” Nolan tells him again, reflexively. “I help out at home all the time. I contribute a ton.”

TK squints at him.

“I run my own car,” Nolan protests.

“That’s _your_ car,” TK says, laughing.

“I look after Katie. I help my mom out with dinner sometimes. When I’m, you know. Around.” Usually purely out of boredom, but TK doesn’t need to know that.

“Hmm,” TK says, then gets distracted by an offer on toaster strudel.

Nolan turns away for five minutes to get a soft pretzel and when he comes back, TK’s found a baby in a stroller on the other side of the store and he’s kneeling on the floor playing peekaboo with it.

“Can’t take you anywhere, man,” Nolan says, walking up to them.

TK pulls his toque down over his eyes and then flips it back up, making the baby kick its feet with delight.

TK grins up at Nolan. “He likes me,” he says.

“All babies like you,” Nolan says. “They don’t know any better.”

“You’re good with him,” says the baby’s mom. She’s young and harried-looking – wisps of hair free from her ponytail floating around her eyes, mysterious stains on her shirt – but she has a kind face. Her expression reminds Nolan of Madison whenever he’d seen her in the first year after Katie was born: badly in need of a nap. “You got kids?”

“Yeah,” Nolan says, elbowing TK in the side as he stands up. “He’s got like, 25.”

“I’m a teacher,” TK explains to the mom, rolling his eyes. He grabs Nolan’s hand holding the soft pretzel and frowns at it. “Only one?”

“They ran out,” Nolan tells him. “But we’ve got poptarts back at the apartment too, remember?”

TK points at the boxes of toaster strudel he’d just left on the floor in a pile with all his other stuff, because he never remembers to pick up a basket and just carries everything around in his arms like a child trying to play with all its toys at once. “Plus, strudel.”

“Strudel,” Nolan confirms.

They turn back to the baby and its mom, both of whom are watching them. The mom’s smiling in an endeared way which Nolan is deeply familiar with from the last couple of weeks of hanging out with TK. The guy just provokes affection in random strangers everywhere he turns. It’s gross.

“See ya, little man,” TK says, bending down to pick up his stuff and shake the baby’s tiny hand, which squeezes around his thumb like a pink squidgy starfish. He straightens up and smiles at the mom. “It was nice to meet you.”

Nolan salutes with his soft pretzel.

“Hey, help me carry some of this,” TK says as they head towards the cash register, trying to pass him a carton of milk.

“Nope,” Nolan dodges it, ducking ahead of TK and turning to smirk at him. “How are you ever going to learn to pick up a basket yourself if I always help you?”

“I hate you,” TK says, dropping a pack of batteries on the ground.

_Snakes in the City_ is on Nat Geo when they get back to TK’s apartment, and he gets so excited about it that he’s basically bouncing up and down on the couch.

“You know you can just record shit, right?” Nolan reminds him. “You could just watch it whenever.”

“It’s not the same,” TK argues, like the stubborn old man he is. “It’s different when it just happens.”

Nolan rolls his eyes and opens Uber Eats on his phone. Man can’t live on toaster strudel alone.

An undetermined number of hours later, TK blinks down at his phone. “Shit,” he says, surprised. “It’s like, two in the morning. Did you know it was two in the morning? Shit.”

Nolan grunts. He mostly didn’t. The knowledge of time passing had felt pretty distant while they were playing _CoD_, and he hadn’t been interested in stopping to check. TK really is as terrible as Nolan had imagined.

“You should just stay over, right?” TK says, voice fuzzy with tiredness now he’s trying to string actual sentences together instead of shouting random curses at the screen. “You should stay.”

It takes Nolan by surprise. He’s halfway to standing up and it jars him so that he turns to TK in mid-motion, body twisted. TK’s sat on the couch, blinking up at him. He frowns and his hand comes up around his eyes. Nolan shifts so that he’s blocking the light from the bulb behind.

“Uh,” Nolan says.

“Law’s room,” TK suggests.

Nolan pulls an unhappy face. He still hasn’t met Lawson, despite hanging out at TK’s apartment a lot lately. “Feels weird.”

“Yeah.” Trav bites his lip. “Couch?”

They both look at the couch, which could optimistically fit maybe half of Nolan’s body mass if he stretched out lengthways instead of just like, jamming up against TK like he usually does. 

They look back at each other, then at the door to TK’s bedroom. The corner of TK’s mouth is twitching.

“I won’t make a thing about it if you don’t,” he says, raising an eyebrow.

Nolan rolls his eyes, already turning towards the bathroom. “You’re like, physically incapable of not making a thing about it,” he calls over his shoulder. “I’m gonna use your toothbrush.”

“Disgusting,” TK yells back. “It’s the pink one.”

When Nolan comes back, TK’s busy doing some shit in the kitchen. He’s left a t-shirt and some pyjama pants on the couch.

“Uh,” Nolan says, scratching the back of his neck as he picks up the t-shirt. “Thanks. The shirt’s good, but is it cool if I just wear my boxers? I get overheated in bed, um.”

Travis doesn’t turn around when he replies. Just “Sure,” which makes Nolan think that maybe it’s not cool after all, but then he does turn around, and he looks fine. Tired and ready to go to bed, but fine.

Nolan shakes out the shirt. Paddy’s Irish Pub novelty shirt, faded to shit. Also, like a size too big for TK.

“This Lawson’s?” he asks absentmindedly as he pulls his hoodie and t-shirt off.

“Uh,” TK says. He says it slowly, his eyes wide. He’s holding a dishrag, squeezing it so that the water runs down his wrist. He startles and tosses it back in the sink. “No.”

“Whose?” Nolan asks, shoving his hair back behind his ears.

“Ivan,” TK says. He swallows; Nolan can see the bob of his throat from here. Nolan frowns as he pulls the borrowed shirt over his head, raising his eyebrows when TK doesn’t elaborate. “Oh. Uh, my ex.”

Nolan pauses in pulling the shirt down over his torso. “Your ex.”

“Yep,” TK says, popping the ‘p’. He gives an awkward laugh, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “Great time to mention that, huh, right? Just before we have to share a bed?”

Nolan tries to smile. “If it wasn’t awkward before, man –”

“Just keep to my side of the bed, I know.”

Nolan snorts. “I mean, are you even capable of staying that still for that long?”

“Guess it’s time to find out,” TK says as he goes into his room, leaving the door open a crack.

There’s the sound of drawers being opened and material being pulled, so he must be changing. Nolan waits outside, perched on the arm of the couch. He checks his phone and he has like, a bunch of texts and a missed call from his parents wondering where he is. Oops. He texts them back and then isn’t really sure what to do. Travis went in there alone, so he must want Nolan to wait, right? Not the kind of guy to change in front of somebody else, apparently.

Or maybe it’s because Nolan’s a guy. Because TK’s gay, or into guys or whatever. That might explain why he didn’t want to change in front of Nolan. And Nolan had just like, whipped his shirt off with no thought at all. God.

Has TK ever mentioned being into guys before? Nolan doesn’t think so. He can’t remember anything like that, and it feels like pretty important information. Not for like, bigoted reasons. Nolan has some experience with this kind of thing; not for nothing did he have huge posters of Jonathan Toews plastered across his walls as a teenager.

It’s just that if TK had said something before, Nolan thinks he would remember.

“Waiting for something?” TK asks, pulling the door open. He looks – his hair’s all mussed, little frowny face. He’s wearing a bright yellow t-shirt and striped boxers. He has really hairy legs.

“No,” Nolan says stupidly. “Shut up. I didn’t –”

“Well, come on,” Travis says impatiently.

Nolan goes.

They lie there in the dark for a while on their respective sides of the bed, both staring straight up at the ceiling, before TK speaks.

“You’ve got ink on your arms too,” he says quietly. “Didn’t know that.”

Nolan shrugs. “Now you do.”

“You want more?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Nolan thinks of something and frowns. “Wait, you said you didn’t date when you got here.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So what about Ivan? Wasn’t he –”

“Oh.” Travis laughs, sounding kind of embarrassed. “I mean, he wasn’t really my boyfriend, you know. He was just, uh. We hooked up a few times.”

“Wow,” Nolan says. “So, like. You got here, fucked a guy, stole his shirt, then just gave it to the next guy who stayed over at your house? Pretty slutty, Teeks.”

TK gives a surprised, full-body laugh, rolling over to face Nolan. He wriggles around until he’s comfortable, mushing the pillow up until he can prop his elbow underneath it. Nolan shifts to face him too, although it’s dark so he can’t really see. He can kind of make out the shape of Travis though; the fall of his hair around his face, the jut of his shoulder. Travis is short but there’s a lot to his body – he’s compact and solidly built, stronger than Nolan would have given him credit for. One time a couple of weeks ago he put his hand slap bang in the middle of Nolan’s chest to stop him walking off with the last chicken tender and he must have put the weight of his whole body behind it, because Nolan couldn’t move. He’d just stared down at TK like an idiot, surprised into silence.

He always has to look down when TK gets that close. He likes the way TK looks up at him all raised brows and eyerolls, that glint in his eye like _yeah, yeah, you’re tall, we get it._

“Yeah, he was alright,” TK says, and Nolan blinks. Right. They were talking about Ivan. “But then other stuff, y’know.”

Nolan doesn’t know what to say. What other stuff? Did Travis stop calling first or did the other guy? Nolan hadn’t thought TK had been with anyone at all while he was in Philadelphia. It’s weird to think about someone walking around out there in the city with that kind of knowledge about TK and Nolan wouldn’t even have known if he’d met him. He could have sold the guy some running shoes and he would have had no idea. Although what the hell, as if it would be better if he _did _know. He can’t even picture the awkwardness of that encounter. _Who’s that, Nolan? Oh, just some guy who fucked my friend last year. No big deal._

He doesn’t know what Travis would be like in bed, either. Kind of bouncy, though, he imagines. Like, all over the place, but in a really fun way. He’d be really fucking enthusiastic, because he’s really fucking enthusiastic about everything he likes, and he’d be loud. God, he’d be so fucking loud.

“Hey, you asleep?”

Nolan grunts. “Not anymore, asshole.”

“You weren’t,” TK says confidently. “Talk to me.”

“Talk to you about what?” Nolan asks. His throat feels scraped raw. He needs to stop thinking about all this while lying two feet away from TK. He needs to stop thinking about it at all, probably.

Although it’s not, like – it doesn’t feel bad to think about. Not one of those weird things where you learn unwanted information about your friends and then can’t get it out of your head, like having knowledge of your parents’ sex life dumped into your brain. It’s making Nolan feel almost giddy, like he just downed an entire fountain soda way too fast.

“About like, whatever.” TK shuffles around, scrunching up the pillow. Nolan wishes he could see his face properly. “Like. Are you dating anyone or whatever. Tell me about that.”

“Nothing to tell,” Nolan says. Kind of mumbles. He hasn’t dated anyone for a long, long time; not since before he left juniors. “I’m not.”

“How come?”

“Because I’m a sasquatch who runs off into the woods every night,” Nolan replies. “Why aren’t you dating anyone?”

“I spend all my time with you,” TK says easily. “When would I see them?”

“We could bring them along in the car,” Nolan says, his heart beating fast. “They could sit next to Katie in the back.”

“Sing along with the radio.”

“Share your Frostys.”

“Never,” TK says calmly. “I don’t share my Frostys with anyone, man.”

“You shared one with Katie like, literally three days ago.” Wendy’s is for Wednesdays. Katie likes the routine. 

“Katie’s different,” TK says, offended. “She’s not just anyone.”

Nolan rolls over onto his back again in an attempt to stop himself from doing something drastic. They need to go to sleep.

“We need to go to sleep, Teeks,” he says. “It’s like, four in the morning. Aren’t you tired?”

“It’s three at most, drama queen,” TK says around a yawn. “But yeah, like. Uh. You warm enough?”

“Yes,” Nolan says, frowning over at him even though he knows TK can’t see. “Obviously. We’re in bed.”

“I know,” Travis says, defensive. “I just – never mind. Night night, bud. Sleep well.”

“You too,” Nolan says automatically. It’s what they always text each other when they’re saying goodnight. It’s kind of nice, if a little strange, to be able to say it in person.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> contemplating just changing the summary for this story to 'soft and horny', as per the comments <3 enjoy!!!

The time Nolan goes to pick up Katie after that is the point when it finally gets weird. Not so much so that Nolan doesn’t want to be on Katie duty or hang out with TK anymore or anything, it’s just that as soon as he gets there and spots TK across the room, all Nolan can think about is that now he knows what TK looks like while he’s asleep.

They’d woken up early – Nolan first, blinking the sunlight out of his eyes because they’d forgotten to close the curtains the night before. TK had still been asleep next to him, burrowed into the pillow. His mouth was softly open and he was snoring. Couldn’t be quiet even while he was unconscious.

It’s not special, probably. TK naps in class when the kids do, so they all know what he looks like when he’s asleep. It’s not some kind of protected knowledge. It was just – Nolan had been really close to his face when TK started waking up, much closer than he should have been. He was just staring at him like a creepy stalker, caught off-guard as TK blinked awake on the opposite pillow. It was super weird. Nolan can admit that.

But TK didn’t bitch him out for it. He didn’t even seem that surprised, just rolled his eyes a little and mumbled “freak” as he snuffled into the pillow, wriggling around and stretching the sleep out of his back. He looked so comfortable that he made Nolan feel clumsy.

He feels it again now, watching TK play around with Katie across the room; like his hands are too big for his body. He doesn’t understand why. It’s not like TK was asking him to do anything with them.

TK’s face brightens when he sees Nolan. He offers Katie his hand and she holds her arms out instead, little hands bunching in his t-shirt. TK rolls his eyes but leans down to pick her up anyway, swinging her up onto his hip. Katie immediately starts messing around with his cap, taking it off and putting it back on again backwards, messing up TK’s hair. It’s the camo one. That stupid fucking camo cap.

Nolan’s stomach tightens as they walk up to him.

“Hey,” TK says, smiling. Is he smiling different than usual? Is Nolan reading too much into this? Probably. Travis said he wasn’t trying to meet people, he said – it doesn’t matter what he said. Nolan is overthinking it.

“Hey,” he says back, after slightly too long. Ugh.

TK cocks an eyebrow. “Wow, you look even more spaced than usual. You feeling okay, bud?” His face changes. “Oh, are you like – are you actually feeling okay? Because I can –”

“I’m fine,” Nolan cuts across him, kind of louder than he’d meant. “Don’t, like – it’s fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Okay,” TK says, looking a little taken aback. He adjusts his hands on Katie’s legs and waist as he tries to smile, eyes dipping away from Nolan’s face.

Wow, this sucks. They talk shit to each other all the time but the thought of actually hurting Travis makes Nolan feel like someone is stepping on his windpipe. What the extreme fuck is happening.

“Sorry,” Nolan mumbles. He shoves a hand over his face and then reaches out and grabs Katie’s ankle, smiling at her so he doesn’t have to make eye contact with TK. It probably looks really fixed and weird. Her eyes have gone all wide. Madison’s been reading all these books about how not to fuck up your kids while you’re going through a divorce, and one of the key things is like, not to argue in front of them. Nolan’s not her dad but he shouldn’t be snapping at anyone, least of all Teeks, when Katie’s there to see it. “Sorry,” he says again, more firmly. “I’m fine, just – long day.”

“Yeah,” TK says, offering a slightly tentative smile. He jostles Katie on his hip and she grins, effectively distracted by flattening the hair around his ears as she jams the cap back on his head. TK makes a scrunchy face while she does it. “We had a busy day too, huh?”

“Yep,” she says, moving on to pulling at a loose thread in TK’s t-shirt. “We did some more time and then we played dodgeball.”

“What?”

“They’re learning about time,” TK explains. “Like, minutes and hours and stuff.”

“Sixty minutes in an hour,” Katie recites, and TK does a little cheer.

“That’s right, bud,” he says, face fond as he turns from Katie to Nolan, where it shifts into something more complicated. He gives Katie a tap on the hip and then starts detaching himself, holding her out to Nolan to take. “Look, I’ve, uh. I’ve got some stuff I should wrap up here, you don’t have to wait for me.”

“We don’t mind,” Nolan says without thinking as he takes Katie. He adjusts his grip, squeezing her leg as he settles her on his hip. Does this mean TK wants them to go? “I mean, do you wanna go now, Katie?”

Katie pauses and then shakes her head, eyes darting to TK and back.

“TK comes with us,” she says, confused. Like it’s just a fact of the world.

“Right,” Nolan says. He clears his throat. “You shouldn’t, like – we can wait. It’s fine.”

He risks a glance at TK and wishes he hadn’t. TK doesn’t make you try and figure out, like other people, if you’ve said the right or wrong thing. Everything he feels is just right out there on his face. It must be a huge pain in the ass to not be able to hide behind anything when you’re pissed off or upset or whatever, but it’s not like he can change it, Nolan guesses. It’s just how he’s wired.

He can’t hide it when he’s happy, either.

“You sure?” he asks Nolan, biting his lip on a smile.

Last night, Nolan had been lying in bed scrolling through his camera roll trying to free up phone space when he noticed something and immediately tried to eject the knowledge from his brain. Saved memes and pictures of Katie aside, almost everything from the last couple of months has Trav in it somewhere – throwing up a peace sign in the background of Nolan’s selfies or ruining every picture Nolan has ever tried to take of a sunset. There’s Travis in the middle of brain freeze, face screwed up and hands flapping, slightly blurred because Nolan had been driving (bad). Travis with his arm stuck out the kitchen window of his apartment holding a bag full of burned garlic bread, a panicked look on his face, because he didn’t want to set off the smoke alarm and piss off all his neighbours. Travis, wearing his stupid BLACK SHEEP hat, spinning Katie around in a circle on the dinosaur playground with her hair streaming out backwards like a disc of sun. She was screeching, the kind of really high-pitched noise kids only make when they’re absolutely losing it with joy.

There’s this one photo from a couple of days ago where Travis is way too close to the camera, hair in his eyes and squinting in the sun. He’s not focusing properly, smiling at something just past the lens. He never remembers to look in the right fucking place.

“Yeah,” Nolan says. “I’m sure.”

&&&

_wyd _Nolan texts a couple of days later after TK’s been quiet for an hour or two. On the one hand he’s still feeling kind of confused about everything, but on the other it’s Friday night and he’s watching old episodes of _Always Sunny_ alone in his room. He could stand a distraction.

_out w the boys _TK texts back after fifteen minutes.

Nolan just has time to wonder who the boys are before TK’s texting again: _lindy etc._

And then: _u should come_

Nolan tosses his phone from hand to hand.

“As I tried to explain before,” Dennis is saying onscreen, voice whining out of the tinny laptop speakers, “you cannot get honey from a hornet’s nest.”

_wouldn’t that be weird _Nolan replies. It would definitely be weird. He doesn’t want TK to feel obligated to invite him just because Nolan asked what he was doing tonight. It’s not like they _have _to see each other. Maybe he should leave TK on read. 

_nah _TK replies, because he is immune to social embarrassment. _u shld come._ _i miss u_

Nolan stares at his phone. Okay, so TK is definitely tipsy, if not actually drunk. Nolan hasn’t seen him drunk before. There’s the potential for hilarity there.

_needy _he texts back, rolling off the bed. _where?_

Which is how he ends up calling an Uber and heading out to drink with TK and his work friends, even though he hasn’t met any of these guys more than exchanging an awkward smile as he passes them in the hall. It doesn’t help that when he arrives, TK claps him on the back and pulls him in for a hug. Not like, a backslap bro hug – a real one, as if they haven’t seen each other for months.

Nolan pulls back and grabs TK’s chin, tilting his head up. His eyes are slightly glassy.

“Lightweight,” Nolan mutters. 

“It’s great you’re here,” TK tells him earnestly.

“I know, buddy,” Nolan says, feeling his face get red. He can blame it on the heat and stuffiness inside the bar, whatever. It’s not like anyone’s going to ask.

He taps TK on the cheek gently and TK just smiles up at him, looking dopey as hell.

Nolan can feel the eyes of the entire table on them when they go to sit down. He drains half his beer in one go, avoiding looking at anyone for too long as TK does a quick round of introductions. He already knows Lindy, and Kevin by sight because there’s a lot of him to see. And then there’s little Joel Farabee from the administration office, who does not look old enough to be in a bar even to Nolan. The one at the end of the booth with the piercing eyes turns out to be G, TK’s boss, although he doesn’t seem to be letting that stop him. He raises his beer to Nolan, who has no idea what to say or do in response, so he just nods and drinks more.

“So you’re putting up with this one, eh?” G asks, nodding at TK. “My sympathies.”

“I guess,” Nolan says. ‘Putting up with’ seems like an accurate term for it.

Kevin makes an _oh _sound, a surprised but friendly look on his face. “Oh, cool, so you’re TK’s –”

“Friend,” TK interrupts cheerfully. “Buddy. Bro. Gal pal.”

Lindy makes a choked noise. Nolan drinks more.

“Do you live far from here?” Joel asks Nolan, leaning forward earnestly.

“No, I, uh.” Nolan fidgets. “Still live with my parents, it’s. Just a temporary thing.”

“You’re Katie Patrick’s uncle?” Kevin asks. Probably confused about why Nolan is here. Nolan can relate.

Nolan nods.

“TK says she’s a good kid,” Kevin tells him, smiling.

Nolan looks at TK, who is slightly flushed and swigging from his beer, not meeting Nolan’s eye.

“Yep,” Nolan says, leaning back in his seat and letting his arm bump against TK’s. “She’s great.”

“So you go to school around here?” Kevin asks.

Nolan smiles fixedly. “Nope.”

Kevin opens his mouth to say something else, catches the look on Nolan’s face, and hesitates before completely redirecting.

“So, the Flyers,” he says loudly, winking at Nolan. Doesn’t even say anything else, just sits back like he only said it to start shit – which it does, the table erupting in loud booing and complaints, mostly from TK and, surprisingly, little Joel Farabee, who turns out to have a real mouth on him after half a beer.

Nolan doesn’t say much. It’s kind of nice to just sit there and listen to them talk shit for love of the game, not because they want something from him. It’s like he’s undercover or something; they have no idea who he is. No one knows his history here. No one’s going to pay attention to how he acts, especially when he’s – when he’s new.

At some point, TK throws an arm around Nolan to punctuate a point he’s loudly, inarticulately making about the Flyers’ defense – it’s not _in_valid, just kind of bitchy – and after he’s done yelling he leaves it there and Nolan just. Doesn’t move it. It’s warm, solid. Maybe TK forgot it was there.

_Nolan _almost forgets it’s there until the bar staff call closing time and TK squeezes him around the shoulders then gives him a little tap like, _wake up, bud, time to go_. Nolan elbows him in the side, rolling his eyes, and TK ducks his head a little. Nolan doesn’t know why he’s bothering; he can still see him grinning.

Anyway. Nolan’s not exactly drunk but he’s less sober than he has been in like, a while. He pulls out his phone to call an Uber, half-listening to TK mumbling into his shoulder.

“You guys heading out?” Kevin asks.

“Bar’s closing, Kev,” G murmurs. “We’re all heading out.”

TK crooks a smile and tugs on Nolan’s hair. “Beauty sleep.”

G snorts and groans as he stretches, pulling on his jacket. Maybe he’s got his own Uber, or maybe he thinks he’s sober enough to drive. Nolan doesn’t know his life.

“Tell Ryanne I said hi,” TK mumbles, eyes closing. They fly open as he blinks up at G. “And Gav, tell Gav.”

“Yeah, yeah,” G says, but he’s smiling a little as he heads out to a chorus of goodbyes.

“Gav’s the baby,” TK tells Nolan once they’re in the Uber. Nolan’s checking his phone and finding that yeah, Kev already followed him on Instagram like he promised he would. _And_ Spotify. “Best baby.”

“You think every baby is the best baby,” Nolan reminds him.

TK furrows his brow, eyes still closed as he tips his head back against the seat. Nolan can’t actually remember if he opened them in between the bar and the Uber. “Well, they are.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“You don’t make any sense, bonehead.”

Their Uber driver turns the radio up.

When they get up to his apartment, TK weaves his way to the kitchen and pours them both glasses of water.

“Need to hydrate,” he says, pointing at Nolan, his finger drifting slightly off the mark.

Nolan grabs it. “_You_ need to hydrate.”

“Duh,” TK says, frowning. “That’s why I’m doing it too, asshole.”

They crash out on TK’s bed and Nolan stares up at the ceiling, waiting for the room to stop spinning. Jesus, he needs to drink more. Or less. Or something. 

“Lawson’s moving out,” TK says quietly.

Nolan turns his head and squints. “What?”

“Yep,” Travis says, popping the p. “Moving in with his girl. He told me last night.” He sighs. “Took me out to dinner about it. Can’t even hate him, y’know?

“That’s shitty,” Nolan says. Is that why Trav was already a little drunk when Nolan showed up tonight? Because he was sad? Nolan wants to push Lawson into a locker. He still never even met the guy and there aren’t any lockers around to push him into and they’re not in high school anymore, but – locker. “Like, that’s _really_ shitty. What are you gonna do?”

Travis blows out his cheeks. “Get another roommate. Maybe move to a smaller place.”

Nolan frowns at the ceiling.

“He said he’ll pay his share of the rent a couple more months,” Travis continues. “Until I can find someone else.”

Nolan grunts. Lawson’s like, Travis’s childhood best friend or whatever. Nolan should remember that. He should be cutting him some slack or something. Whatever it is people say. These things happen. It’s none of his business.

“It’s fine,” Travis says, although it clearly isn’t really fine. Nolan can’t think of anything else to say, though, or at least not until a few minutes of slow quiet has passed. 

“You’re a good teacher,” he says. It’s like, the only nice thing he can think of that wouldn’t be weird. “I didn’t think so at first, but you are.”

TK turns to look at him, startled.

“Uh,” he says. “Are you okay?”

Nolan rolls his eyes. “Just take the compliment, moron.”

TK snorts and turns back to the ceiling. He sighs. “Always wanted to be one, when I was a kid. Well, that or like, a garbage truck guy or something.”

Nolan chokes. “A garbage truck guy? Jesus, way to aim high.”

“Yeah, look, it’s like – you get to wake up real early, see all these new people all the time, go all over the city – stop laughing, that’s not – anyway, shut up, what were you gonna be?”

Nolan stops laughing. He doesn’t feel like evading this, for once. Maybe it’s time. “I was going to play hockey, but –”

He stops. He still gets a lump in his throat when he tries to talk about this. There are so many endings to that sentence: _but I couldn’t. But it didn’t work out. But I’m not strong enough_.

“What, for real?” TK asks, voice spiking with excitement. “Like – go pro?”

“Yep.” Nolan tucks his hands under his head and stares up at the ceiling.

“Sick,” TK says matter-of-factly. He pauses. “Oh, but then, like – your migraines and stuff?”

“Yep,” Nolan says again.

“Oh,” Travis says. “Well, that fucking sucks.”

Nolan snorts.

“What about now?” TK asks. “Do you like where you work?”

Nolan opens his mouth and shuts it again. “No,” he says finally. “But I can’t, like –” He runs a hand over his face. “After hockey, I – I don’t have any qualifications, or –” He stops again. For once, TK doesn’t fill the silence, even when Nolan wishes he would. “I don’t know what else I want to do,” he says. “I don’t know what to do.”

He’s never said any of this to anyone. Maddy and their parents have probably figured it out from the way he clams up whenever they steer the conversation in that direction, but he’s never actually put it into words before.

“That sucks,” TK says sympathetically. “What do you like to do?”

He asks as if it’s completely valid that Nolan might be having this crisis at the age of 21 instead of years ago when it became apparent that he was never going to get drafted; that his body would fall apart before Nolan ever had a chance to get that far. The migraines were the consequence that lasted, but they were never the whole of it.

The crack of bone, that sound. It hurt the same every time. People said you got used to it, but Nolan never did. He never had time.

“I like video games,” he tries out; an easy one, to start. Travis doesn’t laugh. He’s lying on his side watching Nolan as he speaks, and the pressure of his gaze is kind of weird but also kind of comforting, so Nolan carries on. “I like looking after Katie. I like driving for a long time, when there’s no traffic. I like hunting and fishing, when we go back up to Winnipeg.” He pauses.

“Go on,” Travis encourages. “Keep going.”

“Bossy,” Nolan complains. “Okay, okay, um. I like – I just started tooling around on my dad’s old guitar, and I like that. It’s nice, it feels nice. I like running and working out, even when it, um. Even though my shoulder hurts, sometimes. When it’s cold.” He clears his throat. “I like Thanksgiving. I like summer best of all the seasons. I like helping my mom make sweet potato soup.”

He looks over at TK with raised eyebrows.

“That’s good,” TK tells him. He resettles himself on his folded arms, blinking at Nolan sideways as he gets comfortable. “They’re all good. Keep going.”

&&&

When Nolan was a kid, hockey was the only thing. It was the fixed point, even when it probably shouldn’t have been. He didn’t think about stuff like that back then, obviously – whether it was right or wrong to build yourself around something that unpredictable, that extreme. He was only a kid. He just knew he was good, better than most kids could dream of being, and that was it. Every other door closed. You don’t get a choice what makes you.

Sometimes Nolan wonders what he’d be like if he hadn’t grown up in a hockey family in fucking Winnipeg. If his dad hadn’t been Steve Patrick, if Nolan hadn’t been in the 99% percentile for height in his age range for his entire childhood. If he hadn’t fucking loved it so much.

But there’s nothing he can do about any of that, so he tries not to think about it too much. The thing is, now TK seems to be thinking about it a lot, which means that by extension Nolan has to think about it too.

“Advertising,” TK says through a mouthful of Swedish fish, jumping up on the couch next to Nolan. He’s taken to doing this – just throwing vocations at Nolan when he least expects it to see what sticks. Nolan hated it at first but he learned pretty quickly that nothing bad happens if he says no; TK doesn’t get mad or sulk when Nolan rejects an idea. He just moves on to another one, like he’ll scroll through the never-ending list with Nolan forever if he has to. Sometimes it’s even kind of fun.

Nolan throws a decorative miniature pillow which says HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS at him. “No,” he says. “Obviously. I hate selling stuff to people.”

“You hate talking to people,” TK points out through a mouthful of candy. He clasps the pillow to his stomach. “Which is gonna take out like, ninety percent of the jobs you can do without a degree, dude.”

Nolan hums and snatches the bag of Swedish fish off him.

“I could join the mob,” he muses. “I could, like, become the weird custodian who always knows where to get weed.”

“You could be the dude who fosters animals when they get taken to the shelter,” TK says excitedly. “Paid to pet kittens, bro. That’s like, the perfect job.”

“I don’t think they pay people to do that,” Nolan says. “I think it might be like, the other way around. Besides, Maddy’s allergic.”

TK hums and leans in to pick out more Swedish fish. “Teaching.”

Nolan pokes him on the sole of his foot, making TK hiss and pull back. “With you?”

“No,” TK says, rolling his eyes. “Wouldn’t have to be.”

“You know how I feel about kids.”

“There are older ones,” TK argues. “Almost like adults. Plus they’re all moody and don’t want to talk ever, so you’d fit right in.”

“Shut up.”

“Musician.”

“Tons of money. Really easy route to success, too.”

“Sorry, Bezos, didn’t realise you were aiming for millions.”

“I don’t _want_ a ton of money,” Nolan says, actually thinking about it now. He doesn’t know when his worldview shrunk that much, but somehow it did. “I just want to do something I like.”

“Oh, buddy,” TK says. He shoves Nolan gently in the side of the head and Nolan lets himself be shoved, tip over sideways onto the arm of the couch.

“Do you think I should just go to college?” Nolan asks like half an hour later, when TK’s run out of suggestions for now and they’re just passing the bag of Swedish fish back and forth in silence.

“You could,” TK says encouragingly. “What would you wanna do?”

“I don’t know,” Nolan says, fiddling with the cuffs of his hoodie. He doesn’t want to look at TK and see him acknowledge what Nolan just said. He doesn’t want to look at college admission websites or Google courses he could take. It feels like enough right now to have had the thought; to hold it in his head for longer than the thirty seconds it usually takes for it to skitter away. To have said it out loud.

“Okay,” TK says, throwing a piece of candy up in the air and completely failing to catch it in his mouth. “Are you like, secretly a huge brain? Do you read and stuff?”

Nolan rolls his eyes and resituates himself sideways on the couch. “Hold still,” he says, taking the bag. “Open your mouth.”

TK looks a little startled, but he does it. Nolan gets a piece of candy in there on the first try and takes a second to be satisfied about it while TK chews, eyes bright and contemplative.

&&&

They take Katie to the zoo a couple of weeks before the school year wraps, under the pretense of checking whether or not it would be legit for TK and Lindy to bring the entire class next year.

“It’s cool, because I won’t be teaching her next year,” TK murmurs to Nolan while Katie hustles up against the glass of the marmoset enclosure, making faces at them like she does at babies on the bus. “So this is like, research. It’s not favoritism.”

“Okay,” Nolan says, thinking about the giant hug TK gave Katie earlier when she got freaked out in the butterfly house, his hands soothing up and down her back. He’d swung her up into his arms with no thought at all, no hesitation. “Whatever you have to tell yourself.”

“Snakes next,” TK says happily, looking at the zoo map. Suddenly his face changes. “Shit, Patty, do you think a python could swallow a child?”

Nolan flicks him on the forehead. “Don’t be a dumbass. It definitely could.”

“When we go through the reptile house, we should check for that,” TK says. “Any snakes that could get loose. Tiny gaps in the enclosure walls that tiny hands could fit through.”

“It’s a zoo, Teeks,” Nolan says, resisting the urge to shake him by the scruff of the neck. “They have school groups come through here all the time, they know how to make it safe.”

“You never know,” Travis says simply before he takes off to lift Katie up so she can stick her tongue out at one of the marmosets up on a high branch.

They get Katie mac and cheese for lunch in the zoo cafeteria and she gets kind of sleepy after, so Nolan slings her up on his shoulders. She folds her arms over his hat and rests her chin on them, at which TK makes Nolan stand still so he can take a million pictures.

“New profile pic,” he advises Nolan, who has had the same slightly out-of-focus shot of him smiling awkwardly with his arm around Madison at Thanksgiving dinner for the last eighteen months. 

“I look ten feet tall,” Nolan complains when TK shows him his phone.

“Exactly,” TK says smugly.

“Show me, show me!” Katie insists, making grabby hands from above Nolan’s head. TK has to reach up really high to show her, almost up on his toes.

She falls asleep on Nolan’s head somewhere between the meerkats and the emus, and TK and Nolan have to do some fucking blackbelt-level fake parenting to get her into her carseat without waking her back up. She naps the whole ride home, thumb in her mouth. Is she getting too old for that? Maybe. Probably one of those things it’s not really Nolan’s job to worry about. 

“Are zoos bad?” TK wonders, in a whisper so as not to wake her. He’s leaning back on the headrest, body slumped with tiredness. His voice is all soft and fuzzy, words blurring together.

Nolan shrugs. “I guess some are. We went on a trip to New York once when I was a kid, and they have this zoo in the Bronx. It was fucking bleak. Concrete and shit everywhere. No space.”

TK’s eyes have closed but he’s still nodding. “But they do like, conservation and stuff. Some of ‘em.”

“Yeah,” Nolan says quietly. “Don’t worry about it now.”

They drop TK back at his apartment and Nolan drives Katie home. He carries her inside as gently as he can, fumbling to get the door unlocked until Madison pulls it open from the inside, lips twitching. Nolan points at Katie’s back and presses a finger to his lips.

“Big day,” he says softly as he comes inside and hands Katie over to her mom.

Madison smiles and pats him on the cheek, hefting Katie up gently onto her hip as she carries her upstairs. Nolan waits at the bottom of the staircase for a second, although he doesn’t know what for.

&&&

It was bound to happen eventually, Nolan tells himself. He’s been lucky so far, barely ever had to cancel plans because a migraine came up. Guess that just means it hits harder when it happens at TK’s.

He wakes up already feeling the pulse over his eye and just lies there for a while, wishing it away. He’s got Imitrex here – brought over a stash when he first started keeping a toothbrush in Travis’s bathroom – but he’s never had to use it. He’s booked it out of there with a migraine just starting to hit before, to prevent Travis from seeing it. 

“Oh,” TK says when Nolan pads into the kitchen and tells him. It’s Saturday, nothing to do. TK’s still wearing his pyjamas and his hair is stuck up and fluffy around his ears. Nolan leans against the fridge and closes his eyes. “Yeah, I thought you were sleeping kind of long. Okay.”

“Sorry,” Nolan mumbles, rubbing his fingers in his eyes. “I should – I need to call my parents, I’ll –”

“You should go back to bed, is what you should do,” Travis interrupts. Nolan can _hear_ the scowl in his voice. “You’ve got stuff here, right? Painkillers, whatever?”

“Yeah,” Nolan says. Imitrex isn’t technically a painkiller but he doesn’t feel like explaining that right now.

“So take it,” TK says simply. “Sleep it off.”

“But.” Nolan stops, pulse throbbing sharply as he blinks his eyes open. TK isn’t getting it. “I’ll just be asleep, like, the whole day. You get that, right?”

“Yeah?” Travis asks, leaning against the counter. He looks tired too, Nolan notices for the first time. The kind of tired that doesn’t need Nolan here to worry him, taking up space. “So?”

“So I won’t even be able to talk to you,” Nolan snaps. “I’ll just be passed out.”

“I don’t care.” TK rolls his eyes, pulling a coffee cup out of the cupboard and making a face when he looks inside. He runs it under the tap, talking over his shoulder to Nolan. “You don’t have to like, entertain me. I’m a big boy, I can make my own fun.”

Nolan bites his lip, abruptly so on the edge of frustration that he can’t speak. How is he supposed to do this when Teeks won’t even meet him halfway?

Teeks sees it somehow – maybe he uses his weird teacher powers to recognise a tantrum before it can fully explode. He sets the cup down on the counter and hastily wipes his hands on his t-shirt before cupping Nolan’s face. They’re still kind of wet. It’s gross.

Nolan stares down at him, feeling huge and stupid and hurt.

“Go back to sleep,” TK says, more gentle than Nolan has ever heard him say anything. “Take your meds and go back to sleep, baby. I don’t need you out here, I’ll be fine on my own.”

_Baby. _Nolan draws in a breath slowly. He pulls away, clearing his throat.

“You hate being on your own,” he says, sniffing.

“Yeah,” TK agrees, hand fastening around Nolan’s wrist and tugging him back into the bedroom. “But it’s better than listening to you be a giant bitch, so.”

“I can still walk,” Nolan mumbles as he gets back into bed. He curses and tries to get out again, but Travis puts a hand on his chest and raises an eyebrow at him. “The Imitrex, it’s –”

“I’ve got it,” Travis says, giving him a gentle push. “Stay here.”

He brings back the pills and a glass of water and stands there with his arms folded while Nolan takes them.

“You don’t have to hover over me,” Nolan says, lying down with a sigh. “It’s gonna knock me out, man. Pretty boring for you.”

TK puts his hands on his hips, looking down at him critically. “You never ask for anything,” he says. “So how can I trust that you’re gonna ask if you actually need something?”

“I’m gonna be unconscious,” Nolan says. “I’m not gonna need something.”

“Okay, but if you wake up,” TK insists. “Will you call me? Like, actually call with your phone if you can’t get up.” He curses. “Wait, no screens. Um. Okay, so – throw something at the door or something.” He chews his lip. “Ugh, that’s still a loud noise. Shit.”

Nolan just stares up at him from the pillow, blinking slowly.

“Jesus,” TK mutters, swiping at his own face. “Alright, I’ll just come and check on you in an hour, okay?”

When Nolan blinks awake later, it’s dark enough outside that he doesn’t feel the lack of blackout curtains in TK’s room. He stretches, cracking his back. His head doesn’t hurt anymore; it just feels thick, fuzzy with leftover meds.

He looks around. Teeks must have come in to check on him like he’d said, because there’s a glass of water and a power bar on the nightstand. The latter has an orange Post-It stuck to it, with a crooked smiley face drawn on.

Nolan stares at it for a minute before he makes himself drink the water. He leaves the Post-It stuck to the top of the nightstand, on his side of the bed. 

He wanders out of the bedroom and drops onto the couch next to TK, unwrapping the power bar. Trav’s playing _Untitled Goose Game_. He pauses it but Nolan just waves a hand, grunting, so he starts it again.

“Get the glasses,” he mumbles after a while. He likes it when the little kid runs around.

“Trying to dress the scarecrow.” TK frowns. He looks sideways at Nolan. “You okay? You hungry?”

“I’m here,” Nolan says, rubbing his eyes. “And – not. Later, maybe.”

TK scoots back in his seat and pats his thigh. “C’mon.”

Nolan blinks. “What?”

“Come up here,” TK insists. “Help me play.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Nolan says, although he’s already sitting up. “This isn’t two player, idiot.”

“Didn’t think you knew that,” TK says as Nolan lays his head in TK’s lap. TK braces his forearms on Nolan’s bicep so he can still play. “Seeing as how you’re always telling me what to do.”

“Can’t help it if you get it wrong,” Nolan says, shuffling around so his head rests comfortably on TK’s thighs, which are thicker with muscle than he expected. He wraps his hand underneath like he would with a pillow and squeezes to make sure. Jesus.

TK jumps. “Watch the goods, bud.”

Nolan mumbles and closes his eyes. A few seconds later, the music starts up again. He listens to TK softly cursing under his breath, trying so hard to be a good horrible goose.

&&&

The next morning TK wakes Nolan up too early laughing at stupid shit on his phone. Nolan was gonna go home the night before but then he didn’t feel like driving after the migraine and Teeks wasn’t exactly kicking him out. It was kind of starting to feel like Teeks wasn’t ever going to kick him out, if Nolan wanted to stay.

Nolan flaps out a hand and smacks TK in the chest, burying his face in the pillow.

“Ow,” TK says. “Hey, look at this.” He shoves his phone into Nolan’s cheek.

Nolan groans and rolls out of bed, going to make coffee on the grounds that there is no TK in the kitchen.

It takes all of two minutes for TK to follow him, obviously. Nolan’s stood leaning against the counter, staring at the coffee maker. TK boosts himself up on the counter and drums his heels _tap tap tap _against the cupboard doors as he messes around on his phone. He gets like this sometimes – buzzing with energy, humming in the tips of his fingers. Maybe they should do something today to wear him out. Such a fucking live wire.

Nolan reaches out without looking and wraps a hand firmly around his calf, stilling him.

TK looks up, snorting.

“Oh, that’s your limit, eh?” he asks. Joking, but not. “Good to know. I’ll make a note.”

Nolan side-eyes him and shifts over until he’s stood in front of him. TK’s eyes dart over his face; he reflexively straightens up, trying to make himself taller, but he still only just reaches Nolan’s eyeline. Always got to be pushing up against that boundary, jostling for position. As if otherwise he doesn’t know where he is.

Nolan switches his grip on TK’s leg to his other hand, so he’s not stretching across his own body.

“It’s early,” he says. Not really an answer to anything. Just like, a statement of fact. TK’s a lot to deal with at any time of the day but he’s especially a lot before eight AM, before Nolan has a chance to build up any defences against the stupid shit he does.

Like calling him baby yesterday. Nolan hasn’t forgotten.

“Still not a morning person,” TK says. He’s smiling; he looks excited, although Nolan doesn’t know why. He drops his phone on the counter and tugs on a piece of Nolan’s hair.

Nolan just looks at him.

“Has anyone ever told you that you could play one of the serial killers on _Mindhunter_?” TK asks, brow furrowed. “Because you’ve got the death glare down, bud.”

“You’re the most annoying person I know,” Nolan says, with complete sincerity. “You really are.”

TK smiles at him; a little crooked, a little wry. He tugs on Nolan’s hair again.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “But you don’t know that many people, huh, bud?”

Nolan rolls his eyes. He brings his hands up to TK’s knees and muscles them further apart so he can stand in between. It makes TK’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t say anything. Nolan doesn’t, either. He’s been thinking about this, but that doesn’t mean he knows what to say. He mostly just wanted TK to stop talking so Nolan could figure it out.

The coffeemaker goes quiet while they watch each other. There’s no toaster or beeping microwave or chirping phone to distract either of them; nothing to fill the space where Nolan could put something down, if he wanted to. And he does. It would be the easiest thing in the world, easy and right in a way that nothing has been for a really long time. Before TK, Nolan had forgotten that he could do things with his body that were good; that he could be sized perfectly for something that isn’t hockey.

Travis looks good like this, hair tucked all messy behind his ears, still soft from sleep. He always looks good somehow, even when he looks like ass. There’s probably something wrong with that. If Nolan kissed him, he thinks TK’s whole body would move into it. He thinks TK would riot. 

Nolan cups TK’s face in his hands, fingers tickling just under his ears. He tries to keep the kiss brief in case TK wants to say no, but then TK makes this tiny surprised sound when their lips touch, and his hand comes up to grip Nolan’s forearm. TK leans forward into him, coaxing Nolan in with the warmth of his body, ankles hooking around the backs of Nolan’s thighs. It’s some primo romantic shit. Nolan has honestly never felt like this before.

TK breathes really weirdly into the kiss once he gets the idea that Nolan isn’t fucking him around, like he’s struggling to keep himself together and not stop kissing Nolan at the same time. He leans so far forward that he nearly slips off the counter and Nolan has to catch him, hands dropping to his waist and gripping tight.

TK catches his breath hard and pulls back. “Sorry, sorry,” he says in a rush, words pushing into each other. He’s touching Nolan all over – hands skipping from his face to his hair to his shoulders. Fingers skimming over Nolan’s lips.

“Don’t say sorry,” Nolan blurts. “Don’t.”

They stare at each other, TK’s hands falling still.

“Trav,” Nolan says. His voice sounds weird, all rough and hoarse.

“I know,” TK says. “Like. I _know_.”

He kisses Nolan this time, winding his arms around Nolan’s neck, and Nolan can’t keep it together long enough to figure out if TK knows what he’s doing or if he’s just really enthusiastic. Maybe Nolan’s perception of skill has already become hopelessly warped. TK seems to want it _so much_, more than anyone has ever wanted Nolan, and Nolan wishes he could tell Travis that was true for him too, but he knows he wouldn’t be able to even if he could actually talk. TK won’t tolerate him pulling back even an inch; he wraps his legs around Nolan’s waist and yanks him firmly back in like, _this is mine, bitch_. Nolan has to smack his hands down on the counter to keep his balance.

After that he just gets lost in it, doesn’t know what fucking time it is. At some point his mouth falls open and Travis slips his tongue inside. It’s hot, too hot, Nolan doesn’t know what to do. God, the sounds Travis is making. Nolan runs his hands up the outside of Travis’s thighs and feels him shudder.

“Your hands,” Travis mumbles. “God, your hands.”

“Your hair,” Nolan says, then bites his lip. He didn’t mean to say that.

Travis brightens. “My hair?” he asks. His voice cracks right down the middle. “Really?”

“_You_,” Nolan says, blushing, and kisses him again so he won’t have to keep staring at the look of wonder on TK’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoo boy, last one! thank you so so much to anyone who has read/left kudos/commented, I appreciate every single one of you <3 here's to our beloved idiots!

Nolan wanders around with a stupid smile on his face for like, the next week. He doesn’t even realise he’s doing it until his manager pulls him aside in the middle of his 2.30-9 shift on Friday and asks him a bunch of weird questions about how he’s feeling and how many breaks he’s taken in the last couple of hours, and eventually he works out that she thinks he’s come into work high.

“No,” he tells her firmly. He has actually done that before, so it’s not like it’s outside the realm of possibility, but – you know. Not this time. “No, I haven’t – I, uh. It’s not that.”

Melissa raises her eyebrows, waiting for an explanation. Nolan stares at her before letting his eyes unfocus to the point that she becomes blurry. That’s literally the only way he’s going to get through this.

“I just started seeing this guy, so,” he manages, tapping his employee ID card against his fingernails. Maybe if this goes on long enough he’ll wear off the terrible picture out of sheer desperation. “Uh. We’ve been. I’ve been, uh –”

He stops. She’s frowning in confusion now, but he just cannot keep talking.

“Okay,” she says slowly. Then her expression clears. “_Oh_.” She snorts a laugh. “So you’re just – sorry, I didn’t – that’s great. Good for you, Nolan, honestly.” She laughs again, looking kind of relieved. “If I’d have known you were just _happy_, I wouldn’t have given you such a hard time.”

“Mmhmm,” Nolan mumbles, staring straight past her left ear.

“Yeah,” she says, grinning, “but, uh. Maybe stop smiling at all the customers like that? And remember to keep your phone in your locker during your shift, okay?”

Nolan Facetimes TK about it when he gets home and TK laughs so hard he nearly passes out.

“You literally only get away with that shit because you’re a mean-looking beautiful giant,” he says, wiping the tears from his eyes. “If anyone else sucked at their job as much as you do, they’d have been fired in their first week.”

“Hey,” Nolan protests.

“C’mon, baby,” Travis says easily. “You know I say it out of love.”

Nolan’s face goes bright red.

“Oh my God,” TK says, awed.

“We’ve been dating for less than a _week,_” Nolan says severely.

TK makes a seesawing motion with his hand. “Eh. Less than a week, couple of months, what’s the –”

“Jesus, shut _up_.”

“I’m not gonna shut up ever,” Travis counters. “Is it because I said baby, or because of the love thing?”

Nolan hangs up on him. TK calls him back immediately. Nolan ignores him a couple of times, just to make a point.

“You should have come over after work,” TK says when Nolan picks up, like nothing happened. He’s using his soft voice, the one that Nolan associates with dim lighting and blankets and that time a couple of weeks ago where they fell asleep on the couch together listening to Hozier trickling through TK’s shitty laptop speakers, Nolan’s head dropping onto TK’s shoulder. That was before Nolan had kissed him, even. Jesus, they’re dumb.

“On an early tomorrow,” Nolan reminds him. He fiddles with the case on his phone, wishing he could touch Travis’s hair. “You could,” he starts, and then stops himself. TK raises an eyebrow and Nolan can just tell it’s on the tip of his tongue: _what’s up, baby?_ He clears his throat. “You should come over for dinner sometime, maybe? Meet my family?”

TK sits up straight in bed and a pillow falls out from behind his back. He doesn’t seem to notice.

“Really?” he asks, already grinning. It’s so easy to make him happy, God. Why doesn’t everyone get to have one of these? “You sure you want me to, Mr. We’ve Only Been Dating A Week?”

“Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want you to,” Nolan says, rolling his eyes. “It’s not even a big deal. You’ve already met Madison a million times anyway, so it’s like –”

“Oh, no,” TK says over him. “Can’t take it back now, bud. That shit means something. It’s _special_.”

“You’re not special,” Nolan lies. “I’ll – I’ll ask my mom when’s a good time and I’ll text you. Okay?”

“Okay,” TK says, still grinning.

They sit there and look at each other for a while and then TK sighs and says he has to grade homework.

“Is it weird that we’re doing this while you’re still teaching Katie?” Nolan wonders out loud.

“Are you gonna beat me up if I treat her like any other kid?” TK asks, yawning.

“You already don’t treat her like any other kid,” Nolan points out, warmth blooming in his chest. “You like, love her, man.”

“I know,” TK moans. “It’s so bad. Anyway, I really have to go.”

Nolan doesn’t really think it’s a problem, but it weighs on his mind more than he expects it to after they hang up. He really needs to go to bed but he goes downstairs to get a glass of water and ends up sat on the couch watching an old episode of _Cake Wars, _wondering if TK’s ever tried to make a birthday cake for one of the kids in his class. If he did, it was probably terrible. And extremely brightly-colored.

Maybe it is gonna be weird for Katie and Madison if TK starts coming over to their house as like, Nolan’s boyfriend. If he eats dinner at the same table as Nolan’s family, hangs out after. God, what if Nolan’s mom makes him play a board game? TK does not have the attention span for Risk.

“Patty,” Madison says gently.

He looks up to find she’s stood behind the couch with a half-eaten granola bar in her hand, watching him like she’s said his name more than once. She’s wearing her _Buffy_ pyjamas, the ones with tiny stakes on the shorts.

“Yeah,” he says, turning around and craning his neck to look at her better. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” She shrugs. “You just looked like you were maybe having a feeling, or whatever.”

“I, uh.” He clears his throat. Okay, how the fuck to do this? How.

Madison’s face has gone really still and calm, with the exception of the jump in her cheek that Nolan knows too well. She’s been burned before, so it makes sense. Maybe that’s always going to be a thing, no matter how long Nolan stays healthy. “Do you wanna talk about something, Pats?”

“No,” Nolan says instinctively. “I mean, like. Maybe? It’s – it’s weird. Not a migraine thing,” he specifies, to chase that look off her face. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she says, the line of her shoulders relaxing. She takes a bite of her granola bar and speaks with her mouth full. “Did something happen with TK?”

Nolan’s lips part. “I mean,” he starts. “Uh. How do you, uh – what do you mean?”

Madison comes around the side of the couch and drops down into the armchair opposite, so Nolan doesn’t have to keep craning over at her.

“I mean like, did you guys have a fight or something?” she asks, mouth still full, as she tucks her feet under her. “You didn’t go over to his apartment after work.”

“I don’t go over there every day,” Nolan says automatically. “What?”

“What?” Madison frowns, folding up the granola wrapper into little squares and shoving it down the side of armchair seat. “Is there – okay, there’s something I’m not getting. What’s going on?”

“You know we’re together?” Nolan blurts. God, his face is burning; he can feel the heat spreading down his neck. “We haven’t even – it didn’t even happen until like a week ago.”

Madison laughs. She stops when she sees the look on Nolan’s face. “Oh my God, you’re serious,” she says, sounding almost upset.

“Yeah, I’m serious,” Nolan says, bewildered.

“Sorry,” Madison says. She puts her hand to her mouth and then laughs again, a kneejerk one, before she drops it to her lap. “Just – _how_?”

“How what?”

“How didn’t you – did you not, like.” Her voice is going kind of high. “You really weren’t together? You’re not just fucking with me?”

“No,” Nolan says, starting to get pissed now. “I think I’d know if we were together.”

“Right,” Maddy says. “Okay, sure. Yeah.”

“What?” Nolan snaps. “Did I have a sign stapled to my back or something?”

She lifts up her hands helplessly. “I don’t know what you want me to say! You seemed – you seemed really into him. Like, major league into him, Patty. I’ve never seen you smile that much.”

“Oh my God.”

“And he wasn’t even in the room!’ Maddy continues. “You’d be smiling and it was just like, at a text, or when Katie was talking about him, or – okay, I can see I’m only making this worse –”

Nolan has his face in his hands.

“Hey, it’s good, right?” she asks, clearly on the verge of laughing again. “I mean, it’s not like anyone’s gonna care.”

“You don’t think it’s a bad idea?” Nolan mumbles through his palms, looking up at her.

Maddy blinks at him. “Oh, what – because he’s Katie’s teacher?”

“Yeah,” Nolan says, gnawing at his lip.

“No,” she says firmly. “Like, I literally thought it was already happening. I don’t care.”

“Okay.”

“So it’s fine.”

“Great,” Nolan says, ready to leave the room and scrub this entire conversation from his brain.

“Besides, Katie’s going into a new class next year so he won’t be her teacher anymore, it doesn’t mean shit.” She laughs and to Nolan’s horror, it sounds a little watery. “Jesus, Patty. I don’t care who he is, if he’s making you this happy. You fucking deserve it, you know?”

Nolan looks down at his lap while she wipes her eyes and sniffs. “I wanted to have him come over, meet mom and dad,” he says. “You think they’d be okay with that?”

“Oh my God, they’ll shit a brick,” she says. “Patty, they’re gonna hog-tie him and trap him in the basement until he agrees to marry you on the spot.”

“What the fuck,” Nolan says, alarmed.

“They think the same as me!” Maddy says, in the world’s most _get a clue _tone of voice. “They think you’re like, on the verge of moving out to go and live your big old gay life with your boyfriend, dude. They’ve been dying to meet him for months.”

“Oh,” Nolan says. “Fuck.”

“Jesus Christ. Is he as dumb as you?” Maddy asks, smacking his head as she walks past him into the kitchen.

&&&

It’s not like, really weird or whatever. TK is clearly super nervous when Nolan’s driving them over, chattering away at a mile a minute and twisting his hands in his lap. He keeps picking up random shit from inside the car and putting it down again. Nolan puts his foot down when TK starts trying to detach the air freshener from the rearview mirror.

“Stop,” he says, reaching over and taking TK’s hand. He laces their fingers together. “You’re gonna break something.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” TK says urgently, biting his lip. “I’ve never met the parents, bro. What if they hate me?”

“They won’t hate you, don’t be a dick,” Nolan says. Nobody hates TK; it’s like a sickness. “They’re excited. It’s gonna be fine.”

That makes Travis brighten. “Aw, they’re happy Nolan got himself a friend?”

“Shut up,” Nolan says, squeezing his hand too tight. “Bitch.”

“It’s funny you think I’m the bitch,” TK says fondly. “I’m gonna let you say that because you’re nervous too.”

“I’m not nervous,” Nolan argues.

“You’re holding onto my hand like, really tight, bud.”

“That’s because I’m a good boyfriend.”

They’re still bickering about it when they get to the house, which Nolan is going to count as a win because it means TK is talking when he comes in the door and so he doesn’t have time to freak out before Nolan’s mom is practically on top of him, holding her arms out for a hug.

“Travis!” she says, beaming her head off. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

“Oh yeah?” Travis asks, craning around to look wide-eyed at Nolan, who makes a face. “What kinda stuff?”

“I’m lying, we haven’t,” she says, pulling back and straightening TK’s collar briskly. Nolan’s still finding it difficult to believe Teeks actually wore a shirt with a collar and buttons and everything. No hat. Like he’s going to fucking church. “He never tells us anything.”

“Mom,” Nolan protests.

She raises an eyebrow at him. “It’s true, isn’t it? Anyway, come through, come through.”

TK grins and walks backwards after her, giving Nolan a wink. Nolan rolls his eyes as he follows. 

Katie’s so jazzed that TK came over to their house that she barely even notices the rest of them are there. She talks a mile a minute the whole time they’re waiting for dinner, pinning TK on the couch with her collection of soft toy animals and telling him each of their names and backstories. TK listens seriously to each one with her favourite toy from when she was really little, Mr. Baa the pink sheep, settled firmly in his lap. This whole situation is clearly winning him huge kudos with Nolan’s parents even though hello, it’s literally TK’s job to listen to small children. Nolan doesn’t think he should get credit for that.

“If you could persuade her to let go of a couple of ‘em, that would be super helpful,” Madison says to TK wryly as they gather at the dinner table. “Her bedroom looks like Build-A-Bear.”

“No,” says Katie, from across the table. “I need them all.”

TK looks at Madison and raises his eyebrows like, _what do you want me to do with that?_

“_No,” _Katie says again, more distressed this time.

“You can put some in my room,” Nolan tells her. “If you get too many.”

Katie thinks about this. “On your bed, so they don’t get lonely?”

“Over by the window,” Nolan bargains. “Sat on the desk together, so they can chill.”

Katie nods slowly. She sticks her little arm across the table, nearly shoving her hand into the butter, and they shake on it.

Madison rolls her eyes. “Thanks, Patty.”

Nolan widens his eyes at her as he pulls his hand back. He looks back across the table and finds TK watching with a tiny smile around his mouth.

“What?” Nolan mumbles through a mouthful of mashed potato.

“You’re a little brother,” TK says, grinning. “_And _an uncle.”

Nolan rolls his eyes. “You already knew that.”

“Yeah, but.” TK shrugs. “You know. It’s different seeing both in action at the same time.”

“Do you have brothers and sisters, Travis?” Nolan’s dad asks.

“Uh, yeah,” Travis says, sawing away at his chicken. “I have a brother, um. Back in Ontario. Older.”

“And what about your parents?” Nolan’s mom jumps in. “How did they feel about you moving so far away from home?”

“Mom,” Nolan says again, putting down his fork. “C’mon.”

She blinks at him, wide-eyed. “What?”

Travis is laughing a little. “It’s fine, uh,” he says, looking down at his plate and moving stuff around on it. “They didn’t love it, but they know this is what I wanted to do, so. I still go home for the holidays and stuff.”

TK talks to his parents a lot. He usually calls them on a Sunday afternoon and it can stretch to, like, an hour between TK telling his mom every single fucking thing that happened to him that week and his mom giving him the lowdown on every single fucking person Travis ever met back in Clachan. Nolan and TK’s mom have this weird relationship where they’ve never met or spoken to each other but TK always tells his mom “Patty says hi” even as Nolan sits silently on the couch waiting for him to finish on the phone so they can unmute the TV again, and then listens for a second and says to Nolan “Mom says hi back” as if this is a turn in the conversation that no one could possibly have anticipated. TK has not tried to hand him the phone so far, which is a good call on his part. Nolan makes a better impression in person.

Nolan’s mom’s eyes are nearly shining at this sign of TK performing the bare minimum. She hasn’t even heard about the phone calls yet. TK keeps darting these little glances between Nolan and his parents like he’s wondering if this interaction is a dealbreaker or something. For who, Nolan doesn’t know.

“And what do they do?” Nolan’s mom asks, which is like the most boring question in the world and only leads into more boring questions that Nolan swears add up to some kind of citizenship test. He tries to interrupt a couple of times before his mom can ask if TK has any criminal convictions but he doesn’t get very far.

“Well, you never tell me anything,” she says. “You just mumble and smile at your phone. I have to get my information somehow, Nolan.”

Nolan’s dad makes a suspicious coughing sound into his beer. TK’s face is a picture.

They watch a movie after dinner, spread out across the living room with TK and Nolan crammed onto the couch. Katie insists on sitting in TK’s lap. She makes a persuasive argument for _The Secret Life of Pets_, despite the fact that they watched that two days ago, but in the end TK gets to pick because he’s the guest.

“No pressure, but our collective opinion of you rests entirely on this choice,” Madison says.

TK’s grinning, ducking his head under all the attention. Nolan kind of wants to put his arm around him, even though it would be in front of his family and would probably get commented on. Maybe he can do it later, when people are watching the movie instead. “Maybe like, _Moana_ or something? Gotta be kid-friendly, right?”

He squeezes Katie around the waist and she wriggles, kicking out at Nolan’s thigh.

“Do you feel like, kin with the chicken?” Nolan asks TK. “Is that why you love that one so much?”

“Does that make you the pig?” TK retorts, cocking his eyebrow.

“Uncle Patty is Te Fiti,” Katie says quietly, as if this is obvious. She offers no further explanation.

There’s a momentary silence as they all process this.

“She’s right,” Travis says, awed. “You _are._ You know like, when she’s all evil and glowy because someone took her stuff away –”

“But, no, ‘cause then she gets all sweet and nice after,” Maddy points out, leaning forward in her chair. “_And_ she’s super forgiving of the Rock, so I don’t think it’s really –”

“But the hair –” TK starts, at which point Nolan has had enough; he gets up from the couch to hunt through their stack of Blu-rays for a movie which won’t end with someone getting their head shoved out the window on the ride home.

TK gets a hug _and _a kiss on the cheek from Nolan’s mom when they leave, and some kind of weird bro backslap hug from his dad. He looks kind of shy about it but touched at the same time, eyes darting all over the place, smiling big.

“Sorry you got grilled,” Nolan says once they’re in the car. “My mom worries too much.”

TK’s still smiling. “It’s fine,” he says. “I know you hate telling anyone, like, anything personal ever, but it goes with the territory, right? Meeting the parents?”

Nolan shifts in his seat. As if he would know – as if he’s done anything like this before. “Yeah, I guess.”

“My mom’s gonna freak out when she sees how tall you are,” TK continues, “so I’ll get payback soon enough, anyway.”

&&&

Nolan had thought he didn’t have much left to learn about TK, but over the next couple of weeks he’s proven wrong. For example, he learns that TK actually was holding back when they slept in the same bed before, difficult as this might be to believe. He likes to fall asleep with his face planted in the middle of Nolan’s back, hand on Nolan’s thigh, knees tucked into the back of Nolan’s. Nolan is convinced this is going to be a huge problem for the 0.2 seconds it takes for him to fall asleep, and TK is so smug about it in the morning that Nolan refuses to even kiss him. For a while.

He also learns that Travis sucks at sexting. There’s never any build up, that’s the problem; he just straight up tells Nolan he wants to suck his dick. Which is cool and everything, and definitely pretty hot, but he also keeps doing it when Nolan is at work or in the middle of family dinner or something, and it makes his face go bright red. And then the next text is always like, a picture of two cats spooning with the caption _me n u _or whatever. It’s infuriating.

“Hi,” TK says when Nolan arrives at the school after spending the entire morning being pelted with this stuff. He’s grinning really, really wide, like he thinks he’s gotten away with something. When the fuck was he even sending them? While the kids were napping? They are both going to hell.

“Hi,” Nolan says, and then leans in and lowers his voice. “You’re a dick.”

“But I’m your dick,” TK tells him.

Nolan yanks the brim of his stupid turkey cap down over his eyes.

“Stop flirting,” Lindy says as he comes up to them. “You will scare children.”

“Doesn’t count if we’re only scaring you, bud,” Travis tells him, flipping off his cap and pulling it back on straight. Nolan has the urge to grab him by the back of the neck and shake him, but he doesn’t. They’re in TK’s place of work and there should be limits, probably.

“Disgusting,” Lindy says. “Going to tell G.”

“Serve it, bud,” Travis says nonsensically. “He caught us making out in the parking lot last week and offered his congratulations.”

Lindy looks between the two of them suspiciously. Nolan keeps his face blank.

“Even worse like this,” Lindy confirms to himself before he wanders off, presumably to go and detach a small child from something dangerous.

TK and Nolan turn back to each other and there’s a second where Nolan almost forgets where they are and leans in to kiss him, just for being such a shithead. He catches himself in time, but TK spots it anyway and hoots delightedly as if Nolan actually did it.

“You were gonna kiss me!”

“You’re delusional.”

“Yeah, you were,” TK beams. “You’re like, crazy into me. You’re doodling my name on all your notebooks. You want me to wear your letterman jacket.”

“It’d be way too big for you,” Nolan says meanly. “You’d look dumb.”

“I think you like it when I wear your clothes,” TK says, his voice dropping a little lower as he steps closer, sliding his fingers in the front pocket of Nolan’s hoodie. “You got all nonverbal when you saw me in your t-shirt last weekend.”

“That’s because you looked stupid,” Nolan lies, dropping his head. This is inappropriate. He had a whole freakout about whether or not this was okay like, last week; it should not be difficult to remember that right now.

“I don’t believe you.”

Nolan draws in a deep breath. “I’m gonna take Katie home,” he says, his voice low and warm. “And then I’m gonna come over. Okay?”

“Oh,” TK says. He clears his throat. “Yep. Good. Okay.”

“Okay,” Nolan repeats, and knocks TK’s cap off his head again before he leaves, just because.

&&&

“Hi,” TK says when he opens the door later, grinning foolishly.

“Hi,” Nolan says.

“I thought we could get Indian, or maybe Thai,” TK says as Nolan comes inside and TK closes the door behind him. “I know you said you wanted to try that new sushi place but I thought we could go there next –”

Nolan catches him around the waist and TK’s throat clicks, his voice dying. Nolan bends to kiss him and TK breathes into it, both arms going around Nolan’s neck. He says he doesn’t like feeling small but he leans into it whenever Nolan kisses him like this, gets up on his fucking tiptoes for it.

They spend a while in the hallway after that, backing each other into walls.

“What did we used to do before this,” TK gasps when they’re on the couch – Nolan stretched out, shirtless, with TK on top of him. One of Nolan’s favourite places to be. Maybe _the _favourite place.

“Can’t remember,” Nolan mumbles, fingers all over TK’s lower back. Hot skin so soft there, so smooth. “Don’t care.”

The thing is, he knows how to make TK moan now. He knows that TK likes his hair pulled, likes to spread his legs across the width of Nolan’s waist and feel the stretch in his thighs. He knows about the look TK gets when he’s needy – the one that’s both hurt and ecstatic at once. It’s incredible. He can’t believe his best friend is this sexy. (He can’t believe many things about that sentence.)

TK cups Nolan’s face. His hand drifts down to Nolan’s mouth, thumbing it open. Nolan lets him do it, breath skipping when TK pushes the pad of his thumb against the wet of Nolan’s lower lip. It’s such a move that he doesn’t want to let TK get away with it but he does, he does; he wants it, wants him inside. It gets Nolan every time.

“So fucking pretty,” TK says softly. Nolan’s hands tighten on his back and TK sighs, shifting his weight around a little. “Had a crush on you since the first time you came in,” he continues, leaning down to play with Nolan’s hair. “You know what you look like when you see Katie, man? When you smile at her? It’s – if you could bottle it, you’d have a weapon of mass destruction, I’m telling you.”

“Oh my God,” Nolan mutters, burying his face in his hands. “You’re so fucking embarrassing.”

“Buckle up, because it’s gonna get a lot worse,” TK tells him seriously. “I mean it, man. We are gonna get your confidence through the roof, Patty. We’re gonna boost it sky-high. I’m gonna tell you you’re beautiful every day of your goddamn _life_.”

“You’re so full of shit right now,” Nolan tells him, feeling the blood pound in his cheeks. He pulls his hands away and stares right into TK’s face. _I don’t need it_, he begs himself to say. _I don’t need you to tell me any of this_. “So full of it.”

“I saw you and I thought, oh my God,” TK carries on, ignoring him. “Oh my God, I can’t believe someone who looks like that is just wandering around out there, out in the world. Without a fucking permit or anything.”

“Shut up, oh my _God_,” Nolan groans. He grabs a pillow from the floor and buries his face in it until he can only see TK’s face a crack, the flush lighting up his skin, pleased and giddy with making Nolan so embarrassed.

“When you smile at me, Patty, it’s the best thing I’ve ever fucking seen,” TK says, half-laughing at himself now even as he speaks. But he means it; Nolan can see it in his face. “The best thing. Swear to God, man.”

Nolan has no idea what to say. His face is doing something, for sure, smooshed into the pillow and just peeking out so they can still see each other, but he doesn’t know what.

They watch each other for a long moment in silence, and then TK shoves the pillow into Nolan’s face until the scratchy fibres jam their way into Nolan’s mouth and he yells out, muffled.

“God, you’re a dick,” he gets out breathlessly when he finally manages to wrestle the pillow away and toss it onto the ground.

“Uh huh,” TK says, and kisses him.

Nolan tries to buck him off just out of principle but Travis won’t have it. He fastens his hands around Nolan’s wrists and pins them to the arm of the couch until Nolan is squirming under him, hips hitching upwards. TK’s hard and Nolan can feel him rubbing his dick against Nolan’s stomach, trying to get some friction. His dick’s trapped under TK’s ass and TK knows all about that, the asshole. His movements are grinding back on it, making Nolan sweat.

“Trav,” he gets out in between kisses. “C’mon.”

TK makes a nonsense soothing noise and lets go of Nolan’s wrists, scooting backwards so he can take off his pants and pull off Nolan’s too with a funny little shuffle and twist of his hips, which isn’t really that funny at all. He looks at Nolan when he’s done, eyes skimming all over his body, wide and admiring. He’s still wearing his t-shirt. It shouldn’t be hot; it should look stupid. It kind of does. And yet.

TK shuffles back up between Nolan’s legs, watching his face the whole time. He leans in and kisses him again, really getting in close so that Nolan has to spread his legs more, pull them back with his hands to make sure Travis can fit. Why the fuck are they doing this on the couch?

TK’s hands make him shiver when they drag up the inside of his thighs. He reaches down between them and kind of – nudges his cock between Nolan’s cheeks, drags it up and down a little so Nolan can feel that the tip is wet.

Nolan shudders, swallowing a sound as TK watches his face.

“You want it?” TK murmurs.

“Yeah,” Nolan says back, just as low.

TK blinks, like he thought Nolan was going to say no or something. Bitch him out about it. But Nolan can’t; he doesn’t have any words.

“Okay,” TK says. “Then let me just –”

He pivots off the couch in a surprisingly graceful movement which Nolan thinks is borne more from urgency than skill and disappears off into his bedroom. This would be a prime moment for Nolan to follow him so that they can go to bed instead of doing this on the couch, but he doesn’t think he could talk. His throat feels weird and tight, and he kind of just wants TK to come back and get on top of him again. He’s had sex before, obviously – he’s had sex with TK before, even – but he hasn’t done this particular thing, and – it’s a lot, that’s all. What’s really dumb is that he should be wishing he had more experience in this particular area so he isn’t a totally sucky lay, but he isn’t. He’d rather get done for the first time on TK’s couch than anywhere else in the entire fucking world. How stupid is that?

When TK returns with condom and lube in hand he climbs right back on top, just like Nolan wished he would. He can’t stop his hands dropping to TK’s hips, squeezing his ass a little.

“I can’t believe you even fit on here, man,” TK tells him, eyes raking up and down Nolan again, all pale and stretched out with his skin starting to blotch up red from the neck down, spreading across his chest. TK tracks the flush with his fingers, shuffling backwards until he’s sat between Nolan’s legs, pushed apart wide with one foot braced on the coffee table. “You’re so _big_.”

“Bet you say that to all the girls,” Nolan mumbles, so that TK’s laughing when he gets his fingers inside Nolan for the first time.

He starts out gentle and careful, but then when Nolan gets fidgety TK gets one hand under him, hot in the small of his back, and encourages him to roll his hips down onto it so that they’re kind of moving together into TK’s hand fucking him. Nolan has to just throw his head back onto the arm of the couch and deal with that for a little while, ignoring the cut-off breaths that are coming out of his mouth. God, it’s a lot. TK has good fingers. Good fucking hands.

He opens his eyes to slits and TK’s straight up staring him in the face, watching Nolan pant.

“How are you being so chill about this?” he asks, swallowing a gasp as TK massages inside him. He feels like the top of his head is about to come flying off.

TK raises an eyebrow. “You think I’m chill?” He grabs Nolan’s hand and presses it to his chest so Nolan can feel his heartbeat, drumming frantic and fast. “I’m like, the furthest thing from chill, bud.”

“Well, you’re not saying anything,” Nolan says, shoving his fingers into TK’s hair and giving him a little tug. TK shudders, his eyes dropping closed for a second. Nolan risks a look at his dick and it’s just as hard as Nolan’s, looking kind of pressed about the lack of attention. Jesus. That’s going inside him. Nolan twitches. “It’s weird. I’m not used to you being quiet.”

“Just trying to concentrate.” TK looks up at him from between Nolan’s legs, eyes dark. “You’re a lot to look at, you know? I don’t want to get distracted.”

Nolan squirms. “Is that three?” he asks. More like pants. It feels like three, Jesus. Trav’s got one hand on his hip pinning him down now, the other one inside. Nolan rolls his hips down into it, liking the achey stretch. “C’mon, Trav, it’s time.”

“Maybe I want to do it more,” TK says, trying to keep his voice light and completely failing. When Nolan looks at him again, he’s got his eyes fixed on where they’re joined, looking fascinated. Nolan slams his eyes shut, biting his lip. “Maybe I want to do this all day.”

“Try it and I’ll flip us,” Nolan warns. He will, too – flip them onto the floor and sit right on Travis’s dick, if he doesn’t hurry the fuck up.

“God,” Travis says reverently. “Another time, eh?”

He pulls back and grimaces at the amount of lube that’s just like, everywhere. He finally pulls off his shirt to clean it up a little before he gloves up and gets more lube on his dick. Nolan’s just lying there, waiting to get dicked down. He wonders if he should be doing something but what is there to do? He pulls his legs back up to his chest and waits impatiently.

TK catches sight of this and takes a long, deep breath, circling his hand around the base of his dick and squeezing tight.

Nolan lets go of one of his legs to wrap a hand around the back of TK’s skull and make him look up. “You go off without really fucking me and I’m gonna be pissed, okay?”

TK glares at him. “That’s not gonna help!”

“Just get on with it, dude.”

“Wow, romance,” TK says. He keeps his eyes on Nolan while he starts pushing inside him, and it’s more – more than Nolan expected. More pressure, more sensation, just _more_. “You okay?”

Nolan nods, blinking hard. He flexes his hand around the back of TK’s neck and squeezes a little. TK hangs his head low while he waits for Nolan to adjust, hair brushing Nolan’s face. They’re both kind of panting; specifically, Nolan is having trouble catching his breath because he’s never felt this full before. People do this all the time, like it’s nothing? That’s crazy. Flat out fucking crazy.

He arches his back, widening his hips, and groans as TK slides the last of the way home.

“Jesus,” he mumbles. “Alright.”

TK shoots him a worried look. “Alright?”

“I’m fine.” It’s true; he’s fine. He’s just having a minor crisis about whether or not TK’s dick really is that big or whether or not it just feels that way right now. He loops his legs around TK’s back and yanks him in a little closer, making them both groan. “Go, c’mon.”

“Okay, but you asked for it, bud,” TK says. He starts working his hips in short, sharp thrusts that make Nolan gasp, fizzing of sensation lighting up all the way to his cock. He tries to grind down on it, get TK’s dick in the right spot, but he can’t make it work.

“How do you need it?” TK asks, eyes on his face as he fucks him. Nolan swallows and tilts his hips up, aware his face is flushing. God, he must be so red. Sweating all over. This couch is never going to be the same.

TK pulls back a little and bends one of Nolan’s legs up over his shoulder, thrusting back in at a slightly different angle that pushes a low noise out of Nolan’s throat, muscles tightening in disbelief. His fingernails dig into the back of Travis’s neck.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Travis says, voice low and worshipful as he thrusts in shallowly, hitting the same spot over and over, circling his hips against it. Nolan bites his lip, throat feeling thick. “Fuck, you’re amazing. Is it good? You feel good?”

“Yes,” Nolan manages. “Yeah, it feels – fucking good, c’mon, more, harder.” He can’t take it like this the whole time, that unrelenting massage on his prostate. It’s gonna kill him.

“Okay,” TK says breathlessly. He pulls most of the way out and then starts fucking in harder, faster, putting his back into it. He shoves Nolan’s body up the couch with the force of it, making him tip his head back against the cushions, and Nolan can hear the harsh noises he’s making but he doesn’t try to stop them because it’s really fucking good sex and he doesn’t care if their neighbours have to hear about it. God, everyone should hear about it. He’s thought about this a lot but he didn’t, like, _know._

They almost slip off the couch at one point but Nolan manages to catch them in time, pulling TK back up onto him with the full force of his upper body. It makes TK go kind of wild over him for a second, burying his face in Nolan’s chest and biting at him. Nolan can feel himself smiling absurdly wide, even as he groans at TK pushing back inside. His cock is pooling precome on his stomach, brushing up torturously gently against TK’s body with every thrust.

“I’m –” Nolan stops, throat blocked with a whine. It all comes out in a garbled mess, hitching with gasps. “I think I’m – gonna come soon, fuck, I’m close, just –”

“Me too,” Travis says tightly. “Here, get yourself – touch yourself, Patty –”

Nolan wants to protest that he doesn’t need permission but his hand is already on his cock and he’s moaning with relief, writhing down into it as TK grinds his cock against that spot inside, trying to make it so good for him, eyes locked on Nolan’s face.

“You should come, baby,” he pants. “Come for me, come –”

And Nolan does, hard and bright, pulsing come over his palm and up on TK’s chest, grinding his cock into his hand while TK fucks him through the last of it. TK hangs his head and lets himself go in a wild flurry of thrusts after, fucking the last of his hardness into Nolan until he comes with a few jerky thrusts of his hips and a loud gasp. Nolan pets at his hair as he slumps over Nolan’s chest, that sound playing over and over in his head.

“Fuck,” TK mumbles into his chest.

“Mmm,” Nolan says, not really a word. TK’s hair is soft. His hands drift down, trace over the arch of his shoulder blades, damp with sweat. TK’s dick is starting to soften but Nolan doesn’t really want him to pull out – he kind of wants Travis to stay there, inside him. Move slowly while they make out, let them both feel the stretch as he stiffs up again inside Nolan. Gently roll his hips up into fucking him again, make Nolan pant. God.

Nolan’s thigh muscles are cramping from staying in this position so long, and his ass probably couldn’t take it again right after. But.

TK lifts his head, propping himself up on his elbows as he peers up at Nolan. “Hey, uh.”

“What?” Nolan asks, pushing Travis’s hair back behind his ears.

“I need a minute but, uh.” He grins, cocking an eyebrow. “You wanna go again?”

&&&

They do pull themselves together enough to leave the apartment, sometimes. They even go on a real date eventually, at TK’s suggestion – dinner at an actual restaurant with candles and flowers in a tiny vase and shit, to celebrate the end of the school year in June.

Nolan drives by to pick TK up and waits outside in the car, texting _im here _and honking the horn a couple of times. It takes TK like fifteen minutes to come downstairs.

“I can’t believe you didn’t even come up,” he complains when he gets in the car. “I was gonna make out with you in the hallway.”

“We can make out in here,” Nolan points out. “Where people can’t actually see us, freak.”

“Not _now_,” TK huffs. “We’ll miss our reservation.”

“Which we wouldn’t have if you’d just come down when I texted you,” Nolan says, pulling out of the parking lot. “You make things so much harder than they have to be sometimes.”

“Yeah, I do,” TK leers.

He’s wearing a button-up shirt that has tiny pineapples on it. The pineapples are wearing multi-colored party hats.

“Because I’m all happy and shit,” TK explains when they’re seated at the restaurant and Nolan is questioning this choice. “You know, it’s fun! It’s bright. Better than what you were going for, bro,” he argues, gesturing at Nolan’s black on grey plaid shirt. “You got a funeral after this?”

“Black is classic,” Nolan argues, although he really hadn’t had any idea what to wear. He’d dressed for dates before, obviously, but it had kind of been – a while – and always with girls, before. Not that it was going to be super different with TK, but it was also, like, as if TK knew anything about style. He’d be just as happy if Nolan turned up wearing no shirt at all. Maybe even happier.

The point is, Nolan doesn’t need to pretend to be better boyfriend material. TK already knows who he is.

Katie and Madison had been chilling in his room while he was trying to figure out what to wear earlier, having a great time heckling him from the bed every time he picked something else out of the wardrobe. Katie’s been coping better with leaving TK’s class than Nolan thought she was going to, mostly because she still gets to hang out with him and Nolan a lot anyway. He gets the impression that she’s kind of lording that over some of the other kids, as if TK is a beloved class pet she gets to keep.

“You know Tan would be disappointed in you,” Madison had told him when Nolan held up another flannel shirt. “He’d want you to try harder.”

“He always wants people to try harder,” Nolan had mumbled. “It’s not just me.”

“Black and orange, black and orange,” Katie started chanting, pounding her tiny fists on Nolan’s bed. “For Gritty!”

“Do it for Gritty, Nolan,” Maddy said solemnly.

Nolan glared. They both knew how he felt about Gritty. “I don’t have anything black and orange.”

“Just nothing that looks like you should be carrying a skateboard under your arm, Pats,” Madison told him. “C’mon, I know this isn’t your first rodeo.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nolan said, picking out the grey and black. It was between that and the weird Big Thief t-shirt, and he felt like he should probably wear something with a collar? “He’s already dating me, he’s not gonna care what I wear.”

“Show me the t-shirt again,” Madison had insisted. “And stop giving me that look, Patty.”

“Doesn’t matter, you look good anyway,” TK sighs now, looking at the menu.

“It’s a curse,” Nolan says. “Hey, you hear back from that guy with the iguana?”

“Nope,” TK says, looking dejected. He’d been psyched about the iguana. “Nothing. Not even a text back.”

Rahul had come to view the apartment two days ago. He’d been making pleased noises while TK showed him round, right up until they went into the kitchen and ran into Nolan, who was leaning against the cabinets and scrolling through his phone while he waited for his Hot Pocket to finish in the microwave.

“I thought this was just a two-bed?” Rahul had asked. “You didn’t mention another roommate.”

TK blinked. “Oh yeah, don’t count him,” he said. Nolan made a noise of protest, which TK ignored. “He’s my boyfriend, but he doesn’t actually live here. Like, he doesn’t pay rent or anything.”

“Hey, I buy like, half the groceries,” Nolan said, not willing to let himself be slandered in front of a complete stranger.

“I see,” Rahul said.

“And I emptied the dishwasher this morning,” Nolan pointed out.

TK rolled his eyes. “For like the second time ever, bud.” He turned back to Rahul. “Believe me, he barely contributes at all, considering the amount of time he spends here.”

Rahul made a show of looking down at his phone. “Oh, look, there’s my Uber.”

“Wait, don’t you have to call those?” TK had asked, confused, trailing out of the kitchen behind him.

“You think he was homophobic?” Nolan asks once they’ve given their order. “Or is it, like. Do you think I shouldn’t be there when you show people the apartment?”

The corner of TK’s mouth twitches. “You think you’re putting people off?” he asks. “All looming and shit? Think they’re intimidated because you’re the prettiest?”

“Shut up,” Nolan says, buttering a roll. “I’m serious, though.”

“I mean, you’re there a lot,” TK points out. “If they can’t handle it for five minutes they’re gonna have a nasty surprise when you sleep over five nights a week.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Nolan says. He feels like they’re missing something really obvious here, but he can’t figure out what it is. “Who’s the next guy?”

&&&

At the end of July, Nolan is forcefully reminded by Madison that his mom’s birthday is coming up, the same as it did last year when he forgot and bought her combination shampoo and conditioner from the drug store across the street in a panic-stricken haze. In order to avoid this happening again, Nolan takes TK shopping with him, as TK has basically the same taste in home decorating as Nolan’s mom. TK still hasn’t found anyone to share the apartment and he’s getting increasingly freaked about it, so. The least Nolan can do is provide a distraction.

They end up aimlessly wandering through the home furnishings section of Macy’s because Nolan has no idea what to pick and it’s full of like, mom crap in here. TK absentmindedly reaches out to touch every soft thing they pass – blankets and pillows and throws; stuffed animals meant for children.

“How do you not have a dog yet?” Nolan wonders out loud. “You’re pining for a pet so bad, man.”

“Because I’m at work all day and I don’t wanna keep it locked up,” TK explains, looking wistful. “It wouldn’t be fair.”

“I could walk it for you,” Nolan says without thinking. “You know, when I’m not on an early. Like, I could walk it in the morning and then you could do it at night.”

TK pauses for a second with his hand on a fluffy rug, so thick his fingers disappear into the fur.

“You mean like, if you lived with me,” he says slowly. “Because you wouldn’t, uh. Drive all the way across town to walk my dog when you weren’t already there, right?”

Nolan thinks TK has not been paying enough attention to the trajectory of their relationship if he genuinely believes this to be true, but he isn’t going to point that out.

“Yeah,” he says, heart thudding. “I guess I – I mean you can’t find a new roommate and I kind of already –”

“You’re already there most of the time,” TK rushes to join in, so they’re speaking over each other. His face has gone all flushed and smiley, the way he does when he’s really, really happy. “So it wouldn’t even be that different. And then I’d get to see you every day.”

Nolan just stands there and stares down at TK for a minute. He feels – helpless, too big for his skin. He leans down and kisses TK out of sheer self-defence, in the middle of fucking Macy’s. TK tastes like the iced coffee he downed before they came into the store because Nolan was chirping him for ordering one that was basically the same size as him, and TK had to drink the whole thing in one shot to prove him wrong.

TK presses into it for a second and then abruptly pulls back.

“But what about when you quit your job,” he says breathlessly. “What about the dog then?”

“Well, when I go to college then my schedule’ll still be pretty flexible,” Nolan says. They’ve been looking at online courses together, although they’re taking it slow. He’ll probably apply next year. At least he doesn’t have to worry about finding an attention-grabbing topic for his admissions essay.

He squints at the look on TK’s face. “Oh my God, are you gonna _cry_?”

“No, shut up,” TK says, blinking. “But –”

“What?”

“It’s too soon, right?” TK says, gnawing on his lower lip, eyes wide and bright. “Like, we only just – a couple of months ago –”

Nolan pulls a face. “C’mon, Trav.”

“Alright,” TK says. “I know, but – it’s still too fast, right? We should be more worried?”

“Are you worried?” Nolan asks instead of answering. It’ll put too much pressure on Trav’s side of the equation if he says he isn’t. It mostly just feels like, oh, right, duh. Of course this is how things are supposed to be. They’ve been running around for weeks trying to find TK a roommate when the most obvious answer was standing right in front of them. And maybe it is too fast, maybe TK’s right, but – it _feels _right, the same way it felt right for Nolan to hold Travis’s face in his hands and kiss him that first time in his kitchen. That’s not something you just say to somebody.

“No,” Travis says, and Nolan’s heart leaps. “But I feel like I should be, you know? Like, your parents – and Maddy, she –”

“They want me to,” Nolan says. “They thought we were gonna, already.”

“Oh God,” TK says, and now it really _does_ look like he’s going to cry in the middle of the soft furnishings section of Macy’s.

“They love you, man,” Nolan says, just to twist the knife. “It’s like, crazy.” He thumps TK on the shoulder. “Hey, we could babysit Katie whenever Maddy wants to have a life or whatever. She could come visit _our apartment._”

“Shut up,” TK says desperately. “Just – shut up.”

“Seriously, Trav, who gives a shit?” Nolan asks. “If you want it and I want it, we should just do it. Right? What the fuck are we waiting for?”

TK lunges up and kisses him again, so hard Nolan nearly loses his balance.

“Okay,” TK pants, grinning when he pulls back. “Okay, fuck, let’s do it. What kind of dog should we get?”

“Miniature labradoodle,” Nolan answers with no hesitation.

TK chokes out a laugh. “Jesus. Had that one in the chamber, eh?”

“Yeah, well,” Nolan says, pulling TK close to him again. “I’ve wanted it for a really long time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 <3 <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Strange Torpedo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26668792) by [growlery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery)


End file.
